Book: History of the Expedition to Russia

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On the other hand, Dantzic contained so much corn, that she alone might
have fed the whole army; she also supplied Koenigsberg. Its provisions
had ascended the Pregel in large barges up to Vehlau, and in lighter
craft as far as Insterburg. The other convoys went by land-carriage from
Koenigsberg to Labiau, and from thence, by means of the Niemen and the
Vilia, to Kowno and Wilna. But the water of the Vilia having shrunk so
much through drought as to be incapable of floating these transports, it
became necessary to find other means of conveyance.

Napoleon hated jobbers. It was his wish that the administration of the
army should organize the Lithuanian waggons; 500 were assembled, but the
appearance of them disgusted him. He then permitted contracts to be made
with the Jews, who are the only traders in the country; and the
provisions stopped at Kowno at last arrived at Wilna, but the army had
already left it.




CHAP. IV.


It was the largest column, that of the centre, which suffered most; it
followed the road which the Russians had ruined, and of which the French
advanced guard had just completed the spoliation. The columns which
proceeded by lateral routes found necessaries there, but were not
sufficiently careful in collecting and in economizing them.

The responsibility of the calamities which this rapid march occasioned
ought not, therefore, to be laid entirely on Napoleon, for order and
discipline were maintained in the army of Davoust; it suffered less from
dearth: it was nearly the same with that of Prince Eugene. When pillage
was resorted to in these two corps, it was always with method, and
nothing but necessary injury was inflicted; the soldiers were obliged to
carry several days' provisions, and prevented from wasting them. The
same precautions should have been taken elsewhere; but, whether it was
owing to the habit of making war in fertile countries, or to habitual
ardour of constitution, many of the other chiefs thought much less of
administering than of fighting.

On that account, Napoleon was frequently compelled to shut his eyes to a
system of plunder which he vainly prohibited: too well aware, also, of
the attraction which that mode of subsistence had for the soldier; that
it made him love war, because it enriched him; that it pleased him, in
consequence of the authority which it frequently gave him over classes
superior to his own; that in his eyes it had all the charm of a war of
the poor against the rich; finally, that the pleasure of being, and
proving that he was the strongest, was under such circumstances
incessantly repeated and brought home to him.

Napoleon, however, grew indignant at the intelligence of these excesses.
He issued a threatening proclamation, and he directed moveable columns
of French and Lithuanians to see to its execution. We, who were
irritated at the sight of the pillagers, were eager to pursue and punish
them; but when we had stripped them of the bread, or of the cattle which
they had been robbing, and when we saw them, slowly retiring, sometimes
eyeing us with a look of condensed despair, sometimes bursting into
tears; and when we heard them murmuring, that, "not content with giving
them nothing, we wrested every thing from them, and that, consequently,
our intention must be to let them perish of hunger;" We, then, in our
turn, accusing ourselves of barbarity to our own people, called them
back, and restored their prey to them. Indeed, it was imperious
necessity which impelled to plunder. The officers themselves had no
other means of subsistence than the share which the soldiers allowed
them.

A position of so much excess engendered fresh excesses. These rude men,
with arms in their hands, when assailed by so many immoderate wants,
could not remain moderate. When they arrived near any habitations, they
were famished; at first they asked, but, either for want of being
understood, or from the refusal or impossibility of the inhabitants to
satisfy their demands, and of their inability to wait, altercations
generally arose; then, as they became more and more exasperated with
hunger, they became furious, and after tumbling either cottage or palace
topsy-turvy, without finding the subsistence they were in quest of,
they, in the violence of their despair, accused the inhabitants of being
their enemies, and revenged themselves on the proprietors by destroying
their property.

There were some who actually destroyed themselves, rather than proceed
to such extremities; others did the same after having done so: these
were the youngest. They placed their foreheads on their muskets, and
blew out their brains in the middle of the high-road. But many became
hardened; one excess led them to another, as people often grow angry
with the blows which they inflict. Among the latter, some vagabonds took
vengeance of their distresses upon persons; in the midst of so
inauspicious an aspect of nature, they became denaturalized; abandoned
to themselves at so great a distance from home, they imagined that every
thing was allowed them, and that their own sufferings authorized them in
making others suffer.

In an army so numerous, and composed of so many nations, it was natural
also to find more malefactors than in smaller ones: the causes of so
many evils induced fresh ones; already enfeebled by famine, it was
necessary to make forced marches in order to escape from it, and to
reach the enemy. At night when they halted, the soldiers thronged into
the houses; there, worn out with fatigue and want, they threw themselves
upon the first dirty straw they met with.

The most robust had barely spirits left to knead the flour which they
found, and to light the ovens with which all those wooden houses were
supplied; others had scarcely strength to go a few paces in order to
make the fires necessary to cook some food; their officers, exhausted
like themselves, feebly gave orders to take more care, and neglected to
see that their orders were obeyed. A piece of burnt wood, at such times
escaping from an oven, or a spark from the fire of the bivouacs, was
sufficient to set fire to a castle or a whole village, and to cause the
deaths of many unfortunate soldiers who had taken refuge in them. In
other respects, these disorders were very rare in Lithuania.

The emperor was not ignorant of these details, but he had committed
himself too far. Even at Wilna, all these disorders had taken place; the
Duke of Treviso, among others, informed him, "that he had seen, from the
Niemen to the Vilia, nothing but ruined habitations, and baggage and
provision-waggons abandoned; they were found dispersed on the highways
and in the fields, overturned, broke open, and their contents scattered
here and there, and pillaged, as if they had been taken by the enemy: he
should have imagined himself following a defeated army. Ten thousand
horses had been killed by the cold rains of the great storm, and by the
unripe rye, which had become their new and only food. Their carcases
were lying encumbering the road: they sent forth a mephitic smell
impossible to breathe: it was a new scourge, which some compared to
famine, but much more terrible: several soldiers of the young guard had
already perished of hunger."

Up to that point Napoleon listened with calmness, but here he abruptly
interrupted the speaker. Wishing to escape from distress by incredulity,
he exclaimed, "It is impossible! where are their twenty days' provisions?
Soldiers well commanded never die of hunger."

A general, the author of this last report, was present. Napoleon turned
towards him; appealed to him, and pressed him with questions; and that
general, either from weakness or uncertainty, replied, "that the
individuals referred to had not died of hunger, but of intoxication."

The emperor then remained convinced that the privations of the soldiers
had been exaggerated to him. As to the rest, he exclaimed, "The loss of
the horses must be borne with; of some equipages, and even some
habitations; it was a torrent that rolled away: it was the worst side of
the picture of war; an evil exchanged for a good; to misery her share
must be given; his treasures, his benefits would repair the loss: one
great result would make amends for all; he only required a single
victory; if sufficient means remained for accomplishing that, he should
be satisfied."

The duke remarked, that a victory might be overtaken by a more
methodical march, followed by the magazines; but he was not listened to.
Those to whom this marshal (who had just returned from Spain,)
complained, replied to him, "That, in fact the emperor grew angry at the
account of evils, which he considered irremediable, his policy imposing
on him the necessity of a prompt and decisive victory."

They added, "that they saw too clearly that the health of their leader
was impaired; and that being compelled, notwithstanding, to throw
himself into positions more and more critical, he could not survey,
without ill temper, the difficulties which he passed by, and suffered to
accumulate behind him; difficulties which he then affected to treat with
contempt, in order to disguise their importance, and preserve the energy
of mind which he himself required to surmount them. This was the reason
that, being already disturbed and fatigued by the new and critical
situation into which he had thrown himself, and impatient to escape from
it, he kept marching on, always pushing his army forward, in order to
bring matters sooner to a termination."

Thus it was that Napoleon was constrained to shut his eyes to facts. It
is well known that the greater part of his ministers were not
flatterers. Both facts and men spoke sufficiently; but what could they
teach him? Of what was he ignorant? Had not all his preparations been
dictated by the most clear-sighted foresight? What could be said to him,
which he had not himself said and written a hundred times? It was after
having anticipated the minutest details; having prepared for every
inconvenience, having provided every thing for a slow and methodical
war, that he divested himself of all these precautions, that he
abandoned all these preparations, and suffered himself to be hurried
away by habit, by the necessity of short wars, of rapid victories, and
sudden treaties of peace.




CHAP. V.


It was in the midst of these grave circumstances that Balachoff, a
minister of the Russian emperor, presented himself with a flag of truce
at the French advanced posts. He was received, and the army, now become
less ardent, indulged anticipations of peace.

He brought this message from Alexander to Napoleon, "That it was not yet
too late to negotiate; a war which the soil, the climate, and the
character of Russia, rendered interminable, was begun; but all
reconciliation was not become impossible, and from one bank of the
Niemen to the other they might yet come to an understanding." He,
moreover, added, "that his master declared, in the face of Europe, that
he was not the aggressor; that his ambassador at Paris, in demanding his
passports, did not consider himself as having broken the peace; that
thus, the French had entered Russia without a declaration of war." There
were, however, no fresh overtures, either verbal or written, presented
by Balachoff.

The choice of this flag of truce had been remarked; he was the minister
of the Russian police; that office required an observant spirit, and it
was thought that he was sent to exercise it amongst us. What rendered us
more mistrustful of the character of the negotiator was, that the
negotiation appeared to have no character, unless it were that of great
moderation, which, under the actual circumstances, was taken for
weakness.

Napoleon did not hesitate. He would not stop at Paris; how could he then
retreat at Wilna? What would Europe think? What result could he exhibit
to the French and allied armies as a motive for so many fatigues; for
such vast movements; for such enormous individual and national
expenditure: it would be confessing himself vanquished. Besides, his
language before so many princes, since his departure from Paris, had
pledged him as much as his actions; so that, in fact, he found himself
as much compromised on the score of his allies as of his enemies. Even
then, it is said, the warmth of conversation with Balachoff hurried him
away. "What had brought him to Wilna? What did the Emperor of Russia
want with him? Did he pretend to resist him? He was only a parade
general. As to himself, his head was his counsellor; from that every
thing proceeded. But as to Alexander,--who was there to counsel him?
Whom had he to oppose to him? He had only three generals,--Kutusof, whom
he did not like, because he was a Russian; Beningsen, superannuated six
years ago, and now in his second childhood; and Barclay: the last could
certainly manoeuvre; he was brave; he understood war; but he was a
general only good for a retreat." And he added, "You all believe
yourselves to understand the art of war, because you have read Jomini;
but if his book could have taught it you, do you think that I should
have allowed it to be published?" In this conversation, of which the
above is the Russian version, it is certain that he added, "that,
however, the Emperor Alexander had friends even in the imperial
head-quarters." Then, pointing out Caulaincourt to the Russian minister,
"There," said he, "is a knight of your emperor; he is a Russian in the
French camp."

Probably Caulaincourt did not sufficiently comprehend, that by that
expression Napoleon only wished to point him out as a negotiator who
would be agreeable to Alexander; for as soon as Balachoff was gone, he
advanced towards the emperor, and in an angry tone, asked him why he had
insulted him? exclaiming, "that he was a Frenchman! a true Frenchman!
that he had proved it already; and would prove it again by repeating,
that this war was impolitic and dangerous; that it would destroy his
army, France, and himself. That, as to the rest, as he had just insulted
him, he should quit him; that all that he asked of him was a division in
Spain, where nobody wished to serve, and the furthest from his presence
possible." The emperor attempted to appease him; but not being able to
obtain a hearing, he withdrew, Caulaincourt still pursuing him with his
reproaches. Berthier, who was present at this scene, interposed without
effect. Bessieres, more in the back-ground, had vainly tried to detain
Caulaincourt by holding him by the coat.

The next day, Napoleon was unable to bring his grand equerry into his
presence, without formal and repeated orders. At length he appeased him
by caresses, and by the expression of an esteem and attachment which
Caulaincourt well deserved. But he dismissed Balachoff with verbal and
inadmissible proposals.

Alexander made no reply to them; the full importance of the step he had
just taken was not at the time properly comprehended. It was his
determination neither to address nor even answer Napoleon any more. It
was a last word before an irreparable breach; and that circumstance
rendered it remarkable.

Meantime, Murat pursued the flying steps of that victory which was so
much coveted; he commanded the cavalry of the advanced guard; he at last
reached the enemy on the road to Swentziani, and drove him in the
direction of Druia. Every morning, the Russian rear-guard appeared to
have escaped him; every evening he overtook it again, and attacked it,
but always in a strong position, after a long march, too late, and
before his men had taken any refreshment; there were, consequently,
every day fresh combats, producing no important results.

Other chiefs, by other routes, followed the same direction. Oudinot had
passed the Vilia beyond Kowno, and already in Samogitia, to the north of
Wilna, at Deweltowo, and at Vilkomir, had fallen in with the enemy, whom
he drove before him towards Duenabourg. In this manner he marched on, to
the left of Ney and the King of Naples, whose right was flanked by
Nansouty. From the 15th of July, the river Duena, from Disna to
Duenabourg, had been approached by Murat, Montbrun, Sebastiani, and
Nansouty, by Oudinot and Ney, and by three divisions of the 1st corps,
placed under the orders of the Count de Lobau.

It was Oudinot who presented himself before Duenabourg: he made an
attempt on that town, which the Russians had vainly attempted to
fortify. This too eccentric march of Oudinot displeased Napoleon. The
river separated the two armies. Oudinot re-ascended it in order to put
himself in communication with Murat; and Wittgenstein, in order to form
a junction with Barclay. Duenabourg remained without assailants and
without defenders.

On his march, Wittgenstein had a view, from the right bank, of Druia,
and a vanguard of French cavalry, which occupied that town with too
negligent a security. Encouraged by the approach of night, he made one
of his corps pass the river, and on the 15th, in the morning, the
advanced posts of one of our brigades were surprised, sabred, and
carried off. After this, Wittgenstein recalled his people to the right
bank, and pursued his way with his prisoners, among whom was a French
general. This _coup-de-main_ gave Napoleon reason to hope for a battle:
believing that Barclay was resuming the offensive, he suspended, for a
short time, his march upon Witepsk, in order to concentrate his troops
and direct them according to circumstances. This hope, however, was of
short duration.

During these events, Davoust, at Osmiana, to the south of Wilna, had got
sight of some scouts of Bagration, who was already anxiously seeking an
outlet towards the north. Up to that time, short of a victory, the plan
of the campaign adopted at Paris had completely succeeded. Aware that
the enemy was extended over too long a defensive line, Napoleon had
broken it by briskly attacking it in one direction, and by so doing had
thrown it back and pursued its largest mass upon the Duena; while
Bagration, whom he had not brought into contact till five days later,
was still upon the Niemen. During an interval of several days, and over
a front of eighty leagues, the manoeuvre was the same as that which
Frederic the Second had often employed upon a line of two leagues, and
during an interval of some few hours.

Already Doctorof, and several scattered divisions of each of these two
separated masses had only escaped by favour of the extent of the
country, of chance, and of the usual causes of that ignorance, which
always exists during war, as to what passes close at hand in the ranks
of an enemy.

Several persons have pretended that there was too much circumspection or
too much negligence in the first operations of the invasion; that from
the Vistula, the assailing army had received orders to march with all
the precaution of one attacked; that the aggression once commenced, and
Alexander having fled, the advanced guard of Napoleon ought to have
re-ascended the two banks of the Vilia with more celerity and more in
advance, and that the army of Italy should have followed this movement
more closely. Perhaps Doctorof, who commanded the left wing of Barclay,
being forced to cross our line of attack, in order to fly from Lida
toward Swentziany, might then have been made prisoner. Pajol repulsed
him at Osmiana; but he escaped by Smorgony. Nothing but his baggage was
taken; and Napoleon laid the blame of his escape on Prince Eugene,
although he had himself prescribed to him every one of his movements.

But the army of Italy, the Bavarian army, the 1st corps and the guard,
very soon occupied and surrounded Wilna. There it was that, stretched
out over his maps (which he was obliged to examine in that manner, on
account of his short sight, which he shared with Alexander the Great and
Frederic the Second), Napoleon followed the course of the Russian army;
it was divided into two unequal masses: one with its emperor towards
Drissa, the other with Bagration, who was still in the direction of Myr.

Eighty leagues in front of Wilna, the Duena and the Boristhenes separate
Lithuania from old Russia. At first, these two rivers run parallel to
each other from east to west, leaving between them an interval of about
twenty-five leagues of an unequal, woody, and marshy soil. They arrive
in that manner from the interior of Russia, on its frontiers; at this
point, at the same time, and as if in concert, they turn off; the one
abruptly at Orcha towards the south; the other, near Witepsk, towards
the north-west. It is in that new direction that their course traces the
frontiers of Lithuania and old Russia.

The narrow space which these two rivers leave between them before taking
this opposite direction seems to constitute the entrance, and as it were
the gates of Muscovy. It is the focus of the roads which lead to the two
capitals of that empire.

Napoleon's whole attention was directed to that point. By the retreat of
Alexander upon Drissa, he foresaw that which Bagration would attempt to
make from Grodno towards Witepsk, through Osmiana, Minsk, and
Docktzitzy, or by Borizof; he determined to prevent it, and instantly
pushed forward Davoust towards Minsk, between these two hostile bodies,
with two divisions of infantry, the cuirassiers of Valence, and several
brigades of light cavalry.

On his right, the king of Westphalia was to drive Bagration on Davoust,
who would cut off his communication with Alexander, make him surrender,
and get possession of the course of the Boristhenes; on his left, Murat,
Oudinot, and Ney, already before Drissa, were directed to keep Barclay
and his emperor in their front; he himself with the _elite_ of his army,
the army of Italy, the Bavarian army, and three divisions detached from
Davoust, was to march upon Witepsk between Davoust and Murat, ready to
join one or the other of them; in this manner penetrating and
interposing between the two hostile armies, forcing himself between them
and beyond them; finally, keeping them separate, not only by that
central position, but by the uncertainty which it would create in
Alexander as to which of his two capitals it would be requisite for him
to defend. Circumstances would decide the rest.

Such was Napoleon's plan on the 10th of July at Wilna; it was written in
this form on that very day under his dictation, and corrected by his own
hand, for one of his chiefs, the individual who was most concerned in
its execution. Immediately, the movement, which was already begun,
became general.




CHAP. VI.


The king of Westphalia then went along the Niemen at Grodno, with a view
to repass it at Bielitza, to overpower the right of Bagration, put it to
the rout, and pursue it.

This Saxon, Westphalian, and Polish army had in front of it a general
and a country both difficult to conquer. It fell to its lot to invade
the elevated plain of Lithuania: there are the sources of the rivers
which empty their waters into the Black and Baltic seas. But the soil
there is slow in determining their inclination and their current, so
that the waters stagnate and overflow the country to a great extent.
Some narrow causeways had been thrown over those woody and marshy
plains; they formed there long defiles, which Bagration was easily
enabled to defend against the king of Westphalia. The latter attacked
him carelessly; his advanced guard only three times encountered the
enemy, at Nowogrodeck, at Myr, and at Romanof. The first rencontre was
entirely to the advantage of the Russians; in the two others,
Latour-Maubourg remained master of a sanguinary and contested field of
battle.

At the same time, Davoust, proceeding from Osmiana, extended his force
towards Minsk and Ygumen, behind the Russian general, and made himself
master of the outlet of the defiles, in which the king of Westphalia was
compelling Bagration to engage himself.

Between this general and his retreat was a river which takes its source
in an infectious marsh; its uncertain, slow, and languid current, across
a rotten soil, does not belie its origin; its muddy waters flow towards
the south-east; its name possesses a fatal celebrity, for which it is
indebted to our misfortunes.

The wooden bridges, and long causeways, which, in order to approach it,
had been thrown over the adjacent marshes, abut upon a town named
Borizof, situated on its left bank, on the Russian side. This bank is
generally higher than the right; a remark applicable to all the rivers
which in this country run in the direction of one pole to the other,
their eastern bank commanding their western bank, as Asia does Europe.

This passage was important; Davoust anticipated Bagration there by
taking possession of Minsk on the 8th of July, as well as the entire
country from the Vilia to the Berezina; accordingly when the Russian
prince and his army, summoned by Alexander, to the north, pushed forward
their piquets, in the first instance upon Lida, and afterwards
successively upon Olzania, Vieznowo, Troki, Bolzoi, and Sobsnicki, they
came in contact with Davoust, and were forced to fall back upon their
main body. They then bent their course a little more in the rear and to
the right, and made a new attempt on Minsk, but there again they found
Davoust. A scanty platoon of that marshal's vanguard was entering by one
gate, when the advanced guard of Bagration presented itself at another;
on which, the Russian retreated once more into his marshes, towards the
south.

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