Book: History of the Expedition to Russia

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Hurried away notwithstanding, by the general impulse, Barclay had just
yielded to it for a moment, collected his forces near Rudnia, and
attempted to surprise the French army, dispersed as it was. But the
feeble blow which his advanced guard had just struck at Inkowo had
alarmed him. He trembled, paused, and imagining every moment that he saw
Napoleon approaching in front of him, on his right and every where
excepting on his left, which was covered as he thought by the Dnieper,
he lost several days in marches and counter-marches. He was thus
hesitating, when all at once Newerowskoi's cries of distress resounded
in his camp. To attack was now entirely out of the question: his troops
ran to arms, and hurried towards Smolensk for the purpose of defending
it.

Murat and Ney were already attacking that city: the former with his
cavalry, at the place where the Boristhenes enters its walls; the
latter, with his infantry, where it issues from them, and on woody
ground intersected by deep ravines. The marshal's left was supported by
the river, and his right by Murat, whom Poniatowski, coming direct from
Mohilef, arrived to reinforce.

In this place two steep hills contract the channel of the Boristhenes;
on these hills Smolensk is built. That city has the appearance of two
towns, separated by the river and connected by two bridges. That on the
right bank, the most modern, is wholly occupied by traders; it is open,
but overlooks the other, of which it is nevertheless but a dependency.

The old town, occupying the plateau and slopes of the left bank, is
surrounded by a wall twenty-five feet high, eighteen thick, three
thousand fathoms in length, and defended by twenty-nine massive towers,
a miserable earthen citadel of five bastions, which commands the Orcha
road, and a wide ditch, which serves as a covered way. Some outworks and
the suburbs intercept the view of the approaches to the Mohilef and
Dnieper gates; they are defended by a ravine, which, after encompassing
a great part of the town, becomes deeper and steeper as it approaches
the Dnieper, on the side next to the citadel.

The deluded inhabitants were quitting the temples, where they had been
praising God for the victories of their troops, when they saw them
hastening up, bloody, vanquished, and flying before the victorious
French army. Their disaster was unexpected, and their consternation so
much the greater.

Meanwhile, the sight of Smolensk inflamed the impatient ardour of
Marshal Ney: we know not whether he unseasonably called to mind the
wonders of the Prussian war, when citadels fell before the sabres of our
cavalry, or whether he at first designed only to reconnoitre this first
Russian fortress: at any rate he approached too near; a ball struck him
on the neck; incensed, he despatched a battalion against the citadel,
through a shower of balls, which swept away two-thirds of his men; the
remainder proceeded; nothing could stop them but the Russian walls; a
few only returned. Little notice was taken of the heroic attempt which
they had made, because it was a fault of their general's, and useless
into the bargain.

Cooled by this check, Marshal Ney retired to a sandy and wooded height
bordering the river. He was surveying the city and its environs, when he
imagined that he could discern troops in motion on the other side of the
river: he ran to fetch the emperor, and conducted him through coppices
and dingles to avoid the fire of the place.

Napoleon, on reaching the height, beheld a cloud of dust enveloping long
black columns, glistening with a multitude of arms: these masses
approached so rapidly that they seemed to run. It was Barclay,
Bagration, nearly 120,000 men: in short, the whole Russian army.

Transported with joy at this sight, Napoleon clapped his hands,
exclaiming, "At last I have them!" There could be no doubt of it; this
surprised army was hastening up to throw itself into Smolensk, to pass
through it, to deploy under its walls, and at length to offer us that
battle which was so ardently desired. The moment that was to decide the
fate of Russia had at last arrived.

The emperor immediately went through the whole line, and allotted to
each his place. Davoust, and next to him Count Lobau, were to deploy on
the right of Ney: the guard in the centre, as a reserve, and farther
off the army of Italy. The place of Junot and the Westphalians was
indicated; but a false movement had carried them out of the way. Murat
and Poniatowski formed the right of the army; those two chiefs already
threatened the city: he made them draw back to the margin of a coppice,
and leave vacant before them a spacious plain, extending from this wood
as far as the Dnieper. It was a field of battle which he offered to the
enemy. The French army, thus posted, had defiles and precipices at its
back; but Napoleon concerned himself little about retreat; he thought
only of victory.

Bagration and Barclay were meanwhile returning at full speed towards
Smolensk; the first to save it by a battle, the other to cover the
flight of its inhabitants and the evacuation of its magazines: he was
determined to leave us nothing but its ashes. The two Russian generals
arrived panting on the heights on the right bank; nor did they again
take breath till they saw that they were still masters of the bridges
which connect the two towns.

Napoleon then caused the enemy to be harassed by a host of riflemen, for
the purpose of drawing him to the left bank of the river, and ensuring a
battle for the following day. It is asserted that Bagration would have
fallen in with his views, but that Barclay did not expose him to the
temptation. He despatched him to Elnia, and took upon himself the
defence of Smolensk.

Barclay had imagined that the greatest part of our army was marching
upon Elnia, to get between Moscow and the Russian army. He deceived
himself by the disposition, so common in war, of imputing to one's enemy
designs contrary to those which he demonstrates. For the defensive,
being uneasy in its nature, frequently magnifies the offensive, and
fear, heating the imagination, causes it to attribute to the enemy a
thousand projects of which he never dreamt. It is possible too that
Barclay, having to cope with a colossal foe, felt authorized to expect
from him gigantic movements.

The Russians themselves have since reproached Napoleon with not having
adopted that manoeuvre; but have they considered, that to proceed thus
to place himself beyond a river, a fortified town and a hostile army, to
cut off the Russians from the road to their capital, would have been
cutting off himself from all communication with his reinforcements, his
other armies, and Europe? Those are not capable of appreciating the
difficulties of such a movement who are astonished that it was not made,
without preparation, in two days, across a river and a country both
unknown, with such masses, and amidst another combination the execution
of which was not yet completed.

Be that as it may, in the evening of the 16th, Bagration commenced his
march for Elnia. Napoleon had just had his tent pitched in the middle of
his first line, almost within reach of the guns of Smolensk, and on the
brink of the ravine which encircles the city. He called Murat and
Davoust: the former had just observed among the Russians movements
indicative of a retreat. Every day since the passage of the Niemen, he
had been accustomed to see them thus escape him; he did not therefore
believe that there would be any battle the following day. Davoust was of
a contrary opinion. As for the emperor, he had no hesitation in
believing what he wished.




CHAP. IV.


On the 17th, by daybreak, the hope of seeing the Russian army drawn up
before him awoke Napoleon; but the field which he had prepared for it
remained empty: he persisted, nevertheless, in his illusion, in which
Davoust participated; it was to his side that he proceeded. Dalton, one
of the generals of that marshal, had seen some hostile battalions quit
the city and range themselves in order of battle. The emperor seized
this hope, which Ney, jointly with Murat, combated in vain.

But while he was still full of hopes and expectations, Belliard, tired
of this uncertainty, ordered a few horse to follow him; he drove a band
of Cossacks into the Dnieper, above the town, and saw on the opposite
bank the road from Smolensk to Moscow covered with artillery, and troops
on the march. There was no longer any doubt that the Russians were in
full retreat. The emperor was apprised that he must renounce all hopes
of a battle, but that his cannon might, from the opposite bank, annoy
the retrograde march of the enemy.

Belliard even proposed to send part of the army across the river, to cut
off the retreat of the Russian rear-guard, which was entrusted with the
defence of Smolensk; but the party of cavalry sent to discover a ford
went two leagues without finding one, and drowned several horses. There
was nevertheless a wide and commodious crossing about a league above the
city. Napoleon himself, in his agitation, turned his horse that way. He
proceeded several wersts in that direction, tired himself, and returned.

From that moment he seemed to consider Smolensk as a mere place of
passage, of which it was absolutely necessary to gain possession by main
force, and without loss of time. But Murat, prudent when not heated by
the presence of the enemy, and who, with his cavalry, had nothing to do
in an assault, disapproved of this resolution.

To him so violent an effort appeared useless, when the Russians were
retiring of their own accord; and in regard to the plan of overtaking
them, he observed that, "since they would not fight, we had followed
them far enough, and it was high time to stop."

The emperor replied: but the rest of their conversation was not
overheard. As, however, the king afterwards declared that "he had thrown
himself at the knees of his brother, and conjured him to stop, but that
Napoleon saw nothing but Moscow; that honour, glory, rest, every thing
for him was there; that this Moscow would be our ruin!"--it was obvious
what had been the cause of their disagreement.

So much is certain, that when Murat quitted his brother-in-law, his face
wore the expression of deep chagrin; his motions were abrupt; a gloomy
and concentrated vehemence agitated him; and the name of Moscow several
times escaped his lips.

Not far off, on the left bank of the Dnieper, a formidable battery had
been placed, at the spot whence Belliard had perceived the retreat of
the enemy. The Russians had opposed to us two still more formidable.
Every moment our guns were shattered, and our ammunition-waggons blown
up. It was into the midst of this volcano that the king urged his horse:
there he stopped, alighted, and remained motionless. Belliard warned him
that he was sacrificing his life to no purpose, and without glory. The
king answered only by pushing on still farther. Those around him no
longer doubted, that despairing of the issue of the war, and foreseeing
future disasters, he was seeking death in order to escape them.
Belliard, however, insisted, and observed to him, that his temerity
would be the destruction of those about him. "Well then," replied Murat,
"do you retire, and leave me here by myself." All refused to leave him;
when the king angrily turning about, tore himself from this scene of
carnage, like a man who is suffering violence.

Meanwhile a general assault had been ordered. Ney had to attack the
citadel, and Davoust and Lobau the suburbs, which cover the walls of
the city. Poniatowski, already on the banks of the Dnieper, with sixty
pieces of cannon, was again to descend that river to the suburb which
borders it, to destroy the enemy's bridges, and to intercept the retreat
of the garrison. Napoleon gave orders, that, at the same time, the
artillery of the guard should batter the great wall with its
twelve-pounders, which were ineffective against so thick a mass. It
disobeyed, and directed its fire into the covered way, which it cleared.

Every manoeuvre succeeded at once, excepting Ney's attack, the only
one which ought to have been decisive, but which was neglected. The
enemy was driven back precipitately within his walls; all who had not
time to regain them perished; but, in mounting to the assault, our
attacking columns left a long and wide track of blood, of wounded and
dead.

It was remarked, that one battalion, which presented itself in flank to
the Russian batteries, lost a whole rank of one of its platoons by a
single bullet; twenty-two men were felled by the same blow.

Meanwhile the army, from an amphitheatre of heights, contemplated with
silent anxiety the conduct of its brave comrades; but when it saw them
darting through a shower of balls and grape shot, and persisting with an
ardour, a firmness, and a regularity, quite admirable; then it was that
the soldiers, warmed with enthusiasm, began clapping their hands. The
noise of this glorious applause was such as even to reach the attacking
columns. It rewarded the devotion of those warriors; and although in
Dalton's single brigade, and in the artillery of Reindre, five chiefs of
battalion, 1500 men, and the general himself fell, the survivors still
say, that the enthusiastic homage which they excited, was a sufficient
compensation to them for all their sufferings.

On reaching the walls of the place, they screened themselves from its
fire, by means of the outworks and buildings, of which they had gained
possession. The fire of musketry continued; and from the report,
redoubled by the echo of the walls, it seemed to become more and more
brisk. The emperor grew tired of this; he would have withdrawn his
troops. Thus, the same blunder which Ney had made a battalion commit the
preceding day, was repeated by the whole army; the one had cost 300 or
400 men, the other 5000 or 6000; but Davoust persuaded the emperor to
persevere in his attack.

Night came on. Napoleon retired to his tent, which had been placed more
prudently than the day before; and the Count Lobau, who had made himself
master of the ditch, but could no longer maintain his ground there,
ordered shells to be thrown into the city to dislodge the enemy. Thick
black columns of smoke were presently seen rising from several points;
these were soon lighted at intervals by flickering flashes, then by
sparks, and at last, long spires of flame burst from all parts. It was
like a great number of distinct fires. It was not long before they
united and formed but one vast blaze, which whirling about as it rose,
covered Smolensk, and entirely consumed it, with a dismal roaring.

Count Lobau was dismayed by so great a disaster, which he believed to be
his own work. The emperor, seated in front of his tent, contemplated in
silence this awful spectacle. It was as yet impossible to ascertain
either the cause or the result, and the night was passed under arms.

About three in the morning, one of Davoust's subalterns ventured to the
foot of the wall, which he scaled without noise. Emboldened by the
silence which reigned around him, he penetrated into the city; all at
once several voices and the Sclavonian accent were heard, and the
Frenchman, surprised and surrounded, thought that he had nothing to do
but to sell his life dearly, or surrender. The first rays of the dawn,
however, showed him, in those whom he mistook for enemies, some of
Poniatowski's Poles. They had been the first to enter the city, which
Barclay had just evacuated.

After Smolensk had been reconnoitred and its approaches cleared, the
army entered the walls: it traversed the reeking and blood-stained ruins
with its accustomed order, pomp, and martial music, triumphing over the
deserted wreck, and having no other witness of its glory but itself. A
show without spectators, an almost fruitless victory, a sanguinary
glory, of which the smoke that surrounded us, and seemed to be our only
conquest, was but too faithful an emblem.




CHAP. V.


When the emperor knew that Smolensk was entirely occupied, and its fires
almost extinguished, and when day and the different reports had
sufficiently instructed him; when, in short, he saw that there, as at
the Niemen, at Wilna, at Witepsk, the phantom of victory, which allured
him forward, and which he always imagined himself to be on the point of
seizing, had once more eluded his grasp, he proceeded slowly towards his
barren conquest. He inspected the field of battle, according to his
custom, in order to appreciate the value of the attack, the merit of the
resistance, and the loss on both sides.

He found it strewed with a great number of Russian dead, and very few of
ours. Most of them, especially the French, had been stripped; they might
be known by the whiteness of their skin, and by their forms less bony
and muscular than those of the Russians. Melancholy review of the dead
and dying! dismal account to make up and to render! The pain felt by the
emperor might be inferred from the contraction of his features and his
irritation; but in him policy was a second nature, which soon imposed
silence on the first.

For the rest, this calculation of the dead the day after an engagement
was as delusive as it was disagreeable; for most of ours had been
previously removed, but those of the enemy left in sight; an expedient
adopted with a view to prevent unpleasant impressions being made on our
own troops, as well as from that natural impulse, which causes us to
collect and assist our own dying, and to pay the last duties to our own
dead, before we think of those belonging to the enemy.

The emperor, nevertheless, asserted in his bulletin, that his loss on
the preceding day was much smaller than that of the Muscovites; that the
conquest of Smolensk made him master of the Russian salt works, and that
his minister of finance might reckon upon twenty-four additional
millions. It is neither probable nor true, that he suffered himself to
be the dupe of such illusions: yet it was believed, that he was then
turning against himself that faculty of imposing upon others, of which
he knew how to make so important a use.

Continuing his reconnoissance, he came to one of the gates of the
citadel, near the Boristhenes, facing the suburb on the right bank,
which was still occupied by the Russians. There, surrounded by Marshals
Ney, Davoust, Mortier, the Grand-marshal Duroc, Count Lobau, and another
general, he sat down on some mats before a hut, not so much to observe
the enemy, as to relieve his heart from the load which oppressed it, and
to seek, in the flattery or in the ardour of his generals, encouragement
against facts and against his own reflections.

He talked long, vehemently, and without interruption. "What a disgrace
for Barclay, to have given up, without fighting, the key of old Russia!
and yet what a field of honour he had offered to him! how advantageous
it was for him! a fortified town to support and take part in his efforts!
the same town and a river to receive and cover the wreck of his
army, if defeated!

"And what would he have had to fight? an army, numerous indeed, but
straitened for want of room, and having nothing but precipices for its
retreat. It had given itself up, in a manner, to his blows. Barclay had
wanted nothing but resolution. It was therefore, all over with Russia.
She had no army but to witness the fall of her cities, and not to defend
them. For, in fact, on what more favourable ground could Barclay make a
stand? what position would he determine to dispute? he, who had forsaken
that Smolensk, called by him Smolensk the holy, Smolensk the strong, the
key of Moscow, the Bulwark of Russia, which, as it had been given out,
was to prove the grave of the French! We should presently see the effect
of this loss on the Russians; we should see their Lithuanian soldiers,
nay even those of Smolensk, deserting their ranks, indignant at the
surrender of their capital without a struggle."

Napoleon added, that "authentic reports had made him acquainted with the
weakness of the Russian divisions; that most of them were already much
reduced; that they suffered themselves to be destroyed in detail, and
that Alexander would soon cease to have an army. The rabble of peasants
armed with pikes, whom we had just seen in the train of their battalions,
sufficiently demonstrated to what shifts their generals were reduced."

While the emperor was thus talking, the balls of the Russian riflemen
were whizzing about his ears; but he was worked up by his subject. He
launched out against the enemy's general and army, as if he could have
destroyed it by his reasoning, because he could not by victory. No one
answered him; it was evident that he was not asking advice, but that he
had been talking all this time to himself; that he was contending
against his own reflections, and that, by this torrent of conjectures,
he was seeking to impose upon himself, and endeavouring to make others
participators in the same illusions.

Indeed, he did not give any one time to interrupt him. As to the
weakness and disorganization of the Russian army, nobody believed it;
but what could be urged in reply? He appealed to positive documents,
those which had been sent to him by Lauriston; they had been altered,
under the idea of correcting them: for the estimate of the Russian
forces by Lauriston, the French minister in Russia, was correct; but,
according to accounts less deserving of credit, though more flattering,
this estimate had been diminished one-third.

After talking to himself for an hour, the emperor, looking at the
heights on the right bank, which were nearly abandoned by the enemy,
concluded with exclaiming, that "the Russians were women, and that they
acknowledged themselves vanquished!" He strove to persuade himself that
these people had, from their contact with Europe, lost their rude and
savage valour. But their preceding wars had instructed them, and they
had arrived at that point, at which nations still possess all their
primitive virtues, in addition to those they have acquired.

At length, he again mounted his horse. It was then the Grand-marshal
observed to one of us, that "if Barclay had committed so very great a
blunder in refusing battle, the emperor would not have been so extremely
anxious to convince us of it." A few paces farther, an officer, sent not
long before to Prince Schwartzenberg, presented himself: he reported
that Tormasof and his army had appeared in the north, between Minsk and
Warsaw, and that they had marched upon our line of operation. A Saxon
brigade taken at Kobrynn, the grand-duchy overrun, and Warsaw alarmed,
had been the first results of this aggression; but Regnier had summoned
Schwartzenberg to his aid. Tormasof had then retreated to Gorodeczna,
where he halted on the 12th of August, between two defiles, in a plain
surrounded by woods and marshes, but accessible in the rear of his left
flank.

Regnier, skilful before an action, and an excellent judge of ground,
knew how to prepare battles; but when the field became animated, when it
was covered with men and horses, he lost his self-possession, and rapid
movements seemed to dazzle him. At first, therefore, that general
perceived at a glance the weak side of the Russians; he bore down upon
it, but instead of breaking into it by masses and with impetuosity, he
merely made successive attacks.

Tormasof, forewarned by these, had time to oppose, at first, regiments
to regiments, then brigades to brigades, and lastly divisions to
divisions. By favour of this prolonged contest, he gained the night, and
withdrew his army from the field of battle, where a rapid and
simultaneous effort might have destroyed it. Still, he lost some pieces
of cannon, a great quantity of baggage, and four thousand men, and
retired behind the Styr, where he was joined by Tchitchakof, who was
hastening with the army of the Danube to his succour.

This battle, though far from decisive, preserved the grand-duchy: it
confined the Russians, in this quarter, to the defensive, and gave the
emperor time to win a battle.

During this recital, the tenacious genius of Napoleon was less struck
with these advantages in themselves, than with the support they gave to
the illusion which he had just been holding forth to us: accordingly,
still adhering to his original idea, and without questioning the
aid-de-camp, he turned round to his auditory, and, as if continuing his
former conversation, he exclaimed: "There you see, the poltroons! they
allow themselves to be beaten even by Austrians!" Then, casting around
him a look of apprehension, "I hope," added he, "that none but Frenchmen
hear me." He then asked if he might rely on the good faith of Prince
Schwartzenberg, for which the aid-de-camp pledged himself; nor was he
mistaken, though the event seemed to belie his confidence.

Every word which the emperor had uttered merely proved his
disappointment, and that a great hesitation had again taken possession
of his mind; for in him success was less communicative, and decision
less verbose. At length he entered Smolensk. In the passage through its
massive walls, Count Lobau exclaimed, "What a fine head for
cantonments!" This was the same thing as advising him to stop there; but
the emperor returned no other answer to this counsel than a stern look.

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