Book: History of the Expedition to Russia

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This look, however, soon changed its expression, when it had nothing to
rest upon but ruins, among which our wounded were crawling, and heaps of
smoking ashes, where lay human skeletons, dried and blackened by the
fire. This great destruction confounded him. What a harvest of victory!
That city where his troops were at length to find shelter, provisions, a
rich booty, the promised reward for so many hardships, was but a ruin on
which he should be obliged to bivouac! No doubt his influence over his
men was great, but could it extend beyond nature? What would they think?

Here, it is right to observe, that the sufferings of the army did not
want for an interpreter. He knew that his soldiers asked one another
"for what purpose they had been marched eight hundred leagues, to find
nothing but muddy water, famine, and bivouacs on heaps of ashes: for
such were all their conquests; they possessed nothing but what they had
brought with them. If it was necessary to drag every thing along with
them, to transport France into Russia, wherefore had they been required
to quit France?"

Several of the generals themselves began to tire: some stopped on
account of illness, others murmured: "What better were they for his
having enriched them, if they could not enjoy their wealth? for his
having given them wives, if he made them widowers by a continual
absence? for his having bestowed on them palaces, if he forced them to
lie abroad incessantly on the bare ground, amidst frost and snow?--for
every year the hardships of war increased; fresh conquests compelling
them to go farther in quest of fresh enemies. Europe would soon be
insufficient: he would want Asia too."

Several, especially of our allies, ventured to think, that we should
lose less by a defeat than by a victory: a reverse would perhaps disgust
the emperor with the war; at least it would place him more upon a level
with us.

The generals who were nearest to Napoleon were astonished at his
confidence. "Had he not already in some measure quitted Europe? and if
Europe were to rise against him, he would have no subjects but his
soldiers, no empire but his camp: even then, one-third of them, being
foreigners, would become his enemies." Such was the language of Murat
and Berthier. Napoleon, irritated at finding in his two chief
lieutenants, and at the very moment of action, the same uneasiness with
which he was himself struggling, vented his ill-humour against them: he
overwhelmed them with it, as frequently happens in the household of
princes, who are least sparing of those of whose attachment they are
most sure; an inconvenience attending favour, which counterbalances its
advantages.

After his spleen had vented itself in a torrent of words, he summoned
them back; but this time, dissatisfied with such treatment, they kept
aloof. The emperor then made amends for his hastiness by caresses,
calling Berthier "his wife," and his fits of passion, "domestic
bickerings."

Murat and Ney left him with minds full of sinister presentiments
relative to this war, which at the first sight of the Russians they were
themselves for carrying on with fury. For in them, whose character was
entirely made up of action, inspiration, and first movements, there was
no consistency: every thing was unexpected; the occasion hurried them
away; impetuous, they varied in language, plans, and dispositions, at
every step, just as the ground is incessantly varying in appearance.




CHAP. VI.


About the same time, Rapp and Lauriston presented themselves: the latter
came from Petersburgh. Napoleon did not ask a single question of this
officer on his arrival from the capital of his enemy. Aware, no doubt,
of the frankness of his former aid-de-camp, and of his opinion
respecting this war, he was apprehensive of receiving from him
unsatisfactory intelligence.

But Rapp, who had followed our track, could not keep silence. "The army
had advanced but a hundred leagues from the Niemen, and already it was
completely altered. The officers who travelled post from the interior of
France to join it, arrived dismayed. They could not conceive how it
happened that a victorious army, without fighting, should leave behind
it more wrecks than a defeated one.

"They had met with all who were marching to join the masses, and all who
had separated from them; lastly, all who were not excited either by the
presence of the chiefs, or by example, or by the war. The appearance of
each troop, according to its distance from home, excited hope, anxiety,
or pity.

"In Germany, as far as the Oder, where a thousand objects were
incessantly reminding them of France, these recruits imagined themselves
not wholly cut off from it; they were ardent and jovial; but beyond the
Oder, in Poland, where the soil, productions, inhabitants, costumes,
manners, in short every thing, to the very habitations, wore a foreign
aspect; where nothing, in short, resembled a country which they
regretted; they began to be dismayed at the distance they had traversed,
and their faces already bore the stamp of fatigue and lassitude.

"By what an extraordinary distance must they then be separated from
France, since they had already reached unknown regions, where every
thing presented to them an aspect of such gloomy novelty! how many steps
they had taken, and how many more they had yet to take! The very idea of
return was disheartening; and yet they were obliged to march on, to keep
constantly marching! and they complained that ever since they left
France, their fatigues had been gradually increasing, and the means of
supporting them continually diminishing."

The truth is, that wine first failed them, then beer, even spirits; and,
lastly, they were reduced to water, which in its turn was frequently
wanting. The same was the case with dry provisions, and also with every
necessary of life; and in this gradual destitution, depression of mind
kept pace with the successive debilitation of the body. Agitated by a
vague inquietude, they marched on amid the dull uniformity of the vast
and silent forests of dark pines. They crept along these large trees,
bare and stripped to their very tops, and were affrighted at their
weakness amid this immensity. They then conceived gloomy and absurd
notions respecting the geography of these unknown regions; and, overcome
by a secret horror, they hesitated to penetrate farther into such vast
deserts.

From these sufferings, physical and moral, from these privations, from
these continual bivouacs, as dangerous near the pole as under the
equator, and from the infection of the air by the putrified carcases of
men and horses that strewed the roads, sprang two dreadful
epidemics--the dysentery and the typhus fever. The Germans first felt
their ravages; they are less nervous and less sober than the French; and
they were less interested in a cause which they regarded as foreign to
them. Out of 22,000 Bavarians who had crossed the Oder, 11,000 only
reached the Duena; and yet they had never been in action. This military
march cost the French one-fourth, and the allies half of their army.

Every morning the regiments started in order from their bivouacs; but
scarcely had they proceeded a few steps, before their widening ranks
became lengthened out into small and broken files; the weakest, being
unable to follow, dropped behind: these unfortunate wretches beheld
their comrades and their eagles getting farther and farther from them:
they still strove to overtake, but at length lost sight of them, and
then sank disheartened. The roads and the margins of the woods were
studded with them: some were seen plucking the ears of rye to devour the
grain; and they would then attempt, frequently in vain, to reach the
hospital, or the nearest village. Great numbers thus perished.

But it was not the sick only that separated from the army: many
soldiers, disgusted and dispirited on the one hand, and impelled by a
love of independence and plunder on the other, voluntarily deserted
their colours; and these were not the least resolute: their numbers soon
increased, as evil begets evil by example. They formed bands, and fixed
their quarters in the mansions and villages adjacent to the military
road. There they lived in abundance. Among them there were fewer French
than Germans; but it was remarked, that the leader of each of these
little independent bodies, composed of men of several nations, was
invariably a Frenchman.

Rapp had witnessed all these disorders: on his arrival, his blunt
honesty kept back none of these details from his chief; but the emperor
merely replied, "I am going to strike a great blow, and all the
stragglers will then rally."

With Sebastiani he was more explicit. The latter reminded him of his own
words, when he had declared to him, at Wilna, that "he would not cross
the Duena, for to proceed farther this year, would be hurrying to
infallible destruction."

Sebastiani, like the others, laid great stress on the state of the army.
"It is dreadful, I know," replied the emperor: "from Wilna, half of it
consisted of stragglers; now they form two-thirds; there is, therefore,
no time to be lost: we must extort peace; it is at Moscow. Besides, this
army cannot now stop: with its composition, and in its disorganization,
motion alone keeps it together. One may advance at the head of it, but
not stop or go back. It is an army of attack, not of defence; an army of
operation, not of position."

It was thus that he spoke to those immediately about him; but to the
generals commanding his divisions, he held a different language. Before
the former, he manifested the motives which urged him forward, from the
latter he carefully concealed them, and seemed to agree with them as to
the necessity of stopping. This may serve to explain the contradictions
which were remarked in his own language.

Thus, the very same day, in the streets of Smolensk, surrounded by
Davoust and his generals, whose corps had suffered most in the assault
of the preceding day, he said, that in the capture of Smolensk he was
indebted to them for an important success, and that he considered that
city as an excellent head of cantonments.

"Now," continued he, "my line is well covered; we will stop here: behind
this rampart, I can rally my troops, let them rest, receive
reinforcements, and our supplies from Dantzic. Thus the whole of Poland
is conquered and defended; this is a sufficient result; it is gathering,
in two months, the fruit that might be expected only from two years of
war: it is therefore sufficient. Betwixt this and the spring, we must
organize Lithuania, and recompose an invincible army; then, if peace
should not come to seek us in our winter quarters, we will go and
conquer it at Moscow."

He then told the marshal in confidence, that his motive for ordering him
to proceed beyond Smolensk, was only to drive off the Russians to the
distance of a few marches; but he strictly forbade him to involve
himself in any serious affair. At the same time, it is true, he
committed the vanguard to Murat and to Ney, the two rashest of his
officers; and, unknown to Davoust, he placed that prudent and
methodical marshal under the command of the impetuous king of Naples.
Thus his mind seemed to be wavering between two great resolutions, and
the contradictions in his words were communicated to his actions. In
this internal conflict, however, it was remarked, what an ascendence his
enterprising genius had over his prudence, and how the former so
disposed matters as to give birth to circumstances which must
necessarily hurry him away.




CHAP. VII.


Meanwhile the Russians still defended the suburb on the right bank of
the Dnieper. On our side, the 18th, and the night of the 19th, were
employed in rebuilding the bridges. On the 19th of August, before day,
Ney crossed the river by the light of the suburb, which was on fire. At
first, he saw there no enemies but the flames, and he began to climb the
long and rugged declivity on which it stands. His troops proceeded
slowly and with caution, making a thousand circuits to avoid the fire.
The Russians had managed it with skill: it met our men at every point,
and obstructed the principal avenues.

Ney, and the foremost of his soldiers, advanced in silence into this
labyrinth of flames, with anxious eye and attentive ear, not knowing but
that the Russians might be waiting on the summit of the steep, to pour
suddenly upon them, to overthrow and drive them back into the flames and
the river. But they breathed more freely, relieved from the weight of a
great apprehension, when they perceived on the crest of the ravine, at
the branching-off of the roads to Petersburgh and Moscow, nothing but a
band of cossacks, who immediately fled by those two roads. Having
neither prisoners nor inhabitants, nor spies, the ground was, as at
Witepsk, the only thing they could interrogate. But the enemy had left
as many traces in one direction as in the other, so that the marshal
paused in uncertainty between the two until mid-day.

During this interval, a passage had been effected across the Boristhenes
at several points; the roads to the two hostile capitals were
reconnoitred to the distance of a league, and the Russian infantry was
discovered in that leading to Moscow. Ney would soon have overtaken it;
but as that road skirted the Dnieper, he had to cross the streams which
fall into it. Each of them having scooped out its own bed, marked the
bottom of a valley, the opposite side of which was a position where the
enemy posted himself, and which it was necessary to carry: the first,
that of the Stubna, did not detain him long; but the hill of Valoutina,
at the foot of which runs the Kolowdnia, became the scene of an
obstinate conflict.

The cause of this resistance has been attributed to an ancient tradition
of national glory, which represented this field of battle as ground
consecrated by victory. But this superstition, worthy even still of the
Russian soldier, is far from the more enlightened patriotism of their
generals. It was necessity that here compelled them to fight: we have
seen that the Moscow road, on leaving Smolensk, skirted the Dnieper, and
that the French artillery, on the other bank, traversed it with its
fire. Barclay durst not take this road at night, for fear of risking his
artillery, baggage, and the waggons with the wounded, the rolling of
which would have betrayed his retreat.

The Petersburgh road quitted the river more abruptly: two marshy
cross-roads branched off from it on the right, one at the distance of
two leagues from Smolensk, the other at four; they ran through woods,
and rejoined the high-road to Moscow, after a long circuit; the one at
Bredichino, two leagues beyond Valoutina, the other farther off at
Slobpnewa.

Into these defiles Barclay was bold enough to commit himself with so
many horses and vehicles; so that this long and heavy column had thus to
traverse two large arcs of a circle, of which the high-road from
Smolensk to Moscow, which Ney soon attacked, was the chord. Every
moment, as always happens in such cases, the overturning of a carriage,
the sticking fast of a wheel, or of a single horse, in the mud, or the
breaking of a trace, stopped the whole. The sound of the French cannon,
meanwhile, drew nearer, and seemed to have already got before the
Russian column, and to be on the point of reaching and closing the
outlet which it was striving to gain.

At length, after an arduous march, the head of the enemy's convoy came
in sight of the high-road at the moment when the French had only to
force the height of Valoutina and the passage of Kolowdnia, in order to
reach that outlet. Ney had furiously carried that of the Stubna; but
Korf, driven back upon Valoutina, had summoned to his aid the column
which preceded him. It is asserted that the latter, without order, and
badly officered, hesitated to comply; but that Woronzof, aware of the
importance of that position, prevailed upon its commander to turn back.

The Russians defended themselves to defend every thing, cannon, wounded,
baggage: the French attacked in order to take every thing. Napoleon had
halted a league and a half behind Ney. Conceiving that it was but an
affair between his advanced guard and the rear of the enemy, he sent
Gudin to the assistance of the marshal, rallied the other divisions, and
returned to Smolensk. But this fight became a serious battle; 30,000 men
were successively engaged in it on both sides: soldiers, officers,
generals, encountered each other; the action was long, the struggle
terrible; even night did not suspend it. At length, in possession of the
plateau, exhausted by the loss of strength and blood, Ney finding
himself surrounded only by dead, dying, and obscurity, became fatigued;
he ordered his troops to cease firing, to keep silence, and present
bayonets. The Russians hearing nothing more, were silent also, and
availed themselves of the darkness to effect their retreat.

There was almost as much glory in their defeat as in our victory: the
two chiefs carried their point, the one in conquering, the other in not
being conquered till he had saved the Russian artillery, baggage, and
wounded. One of the enemy's generals, the only one left unhurt on this
field of carnage, endeavoured to escape from among our soldiers, by
repeating the French word of command; he was recognized by the flashes
of their fire-arms, and secured. Other Russian generals had perished,
but the grand army sustained a still greater loss.

At the passage of the bridge over the Kolowdnia, which had been badly
repaired, General Gudin, whose well-regulated valour loved to confront
none but useful dangers, and who besides was not a bold rider, had
alighted from his horse to cross the stream, when, at that moment, a
cannon-ball skimming the surface of the ground, broke both his legs.
When the tidings of this misfortune reached the emperor, they put a stop
to every thing--to discussion and action. Every one was thunderstruck;
the victory of Valoutina seemed no longer to be a success.

Gudin was conveyed to Smolensk, and there received the unavailing
attentions of the emperor; but he soon expired. His remains were
interred in the citadel of the city, which they honour: a worthy tomb
for a soldier, who was a good citizen, a good husband, a good father, an
intrepid general, just and mild, a man both of principle and talent; a
rare assemblage of qualities in an age when virtuous men are too
frequently devoid of abilities, and men of abilities without virtue. It
was a fortunate chance that he was worthily replaced; Gerard, the oldest
general of brigade of the division, took the command of it, and the
enemy, who knew nothing of our loss, gained nothing by the dreadful blow
he had dealt us.

The Russians, astonished at having been attacked only in front,
conceived that all the military combinations of Murat were confined to
following them on the high-road. They therefore styled him in derision,
"_the general of the high roads_," characterizing him thus from the
event, which tends more commonly to deceive than to enlighten.

In fact, while Ney was attacking, Murat scoured his flanks with his
cavalry, without being able to bring it into action; woods on the left,
and morasses on the right, obstructed his movements. But while they were
fighting in front, both were anticipating the effect of a flanking march
of the Westphalians, commanded by Junot.

From the Stubna, the high-road, in order to avoid the marshes formed by
the various tributary streams of the Dnieper, turned off to the left,
ascended the heights, and went farther from the basin of the river, to
which it afterwards returned in a more favourable situation. It had been
remarked that a by-road, bolder and shorter, as they all are, ran
straight across these low marshy grounds, between the Dnieper and the
high-road, which it rejoined behind the plateau of Valoutina.

It was this cross-road which Junot pursued after crossing the river at
Prudiszy. It soon led him into the rear of the left of the Russians,
upon the flank of the columns which were returning to the assistance of
their rear-guard. His attack was all that was wanted to render the
victory decisive. Those who were engaged in front with Marshal Ney would
have been daunted at hearing an attack in their rear; while the
uncertainty and disorder into which, in the midst of an action, it would
have thrown the multitude of men, horses, and carriages, crowded
together in one road, would have been irreparable; but Junot, though
personally brave, was irresolute as a general. His responsibility
alarmed him.

Meanwhile Murat, judging that he must have come up, was astonished at
not hearing his attack. The firmness of the Russians opposed to Ney led
him to suspect the truth. He left his cavalry, and crossing the woods
and marshes almost alone, he hastened to Junot, and upbraided him with
his inaction. Junot alleged in excuse, that "He had no orders to attack;
his Wurtemberg cavalry was shy, its efforts feigned, and it would never
be brought to charge the enemy's battalions."

These words Murat answered by actions. He rushed on at the head of that
cavalry, which, with a different leader, were quite different troops; he
urged them on, launched them against the Russians, overthrew their
tirailleurs, returned to Junot and said to him, "Now finish the
business: your glory and your marshal's staff are still before you!" He
then left him to rejoin his own troops, and Junot, confounded, remained
motionless. Too long about Napoleon, whose active genius directed every
thing, both the plan and the details, he had learned only to obey: he
wanted experience in command; besides, fatigue and wounds had made him
an old man before his time.

That such a general should have been selected for so important a
movement, was not at all surprising; it was well known that the emperor
was attached to him both from habit, (for he was his oldest aid-de-camp)
and from a secret foible, for as the presence of that officer was mixed
up with all the recollections of his victories and his glory, he
disliked to part from him. It is also reasonable to suppose that it
flattered his vanity, to see men who were his pupils commanding his
armies; and it was moreover natural that he should have a firmer
alliance on their attachment, than on that of any others.

When, however, on the following day he inspected the places themselves,
and, at the sight of the bridge where Gudin fell, made the remark, that
it was not there he ought to have debouched; when afterwards gazing,
with an angry look, on the position which Junot had occupied, he
exclaimed: "It was there, no doubt, that the Westphalians should have
attacked! all the battle was there! what was Junot about?" his
irritation became so violent, that nothing could at first allay it. He
called Rapp, and told him to take the command from the Duke of
Abrantes:--he would dismiss him from the army! he had lost his
marshal's staff without retrieve! this blunder would probably block the
road to Moscow against them; that to him, Rapp, he should intrust the
Westphalians; that he would speak to them in their own language, and he
would know how to make them fight. But Rapp refused the place of his
old companion in arms; he appeased the emperor, whose anger always
subsided quickly, as soon as it had vented itself in words.

But it was not merely on his left that the enemy had a narrow escape
from being conquered; on his right he had run a still greater risk.
Morand, one of Davoust's generals, had been despatched from that side
through the forests; he marched along woody heights, and was, from the
commencement of the action, on the flank of the Russians. A few paces
more, and he would have debouched in the rear of their right. His sudden
appearance would have infallibly decided the victory, and rendered it
complete; but Napoleon, unacquainted with the localities, ordered him to
be recalled to the spot where Davoust and himself had stopped.

In the army, we could not help asking ourselves, why the emperor, in
making three officers, independent of one another, combine for the same
object, had not made a point of being on the spot, to give their
movements the unity indispensable, and without him impossible. He, on
the contrary, had returned to Smolensk, either from fatigue, or chiefly
from not expecting so serious an affair; or finally, because, from the
necessity of attending to every thing at once, he could not be in time,
or completely any where. In fact, the business of his empire and of
Europe, having been suspended by the preceding days of activity, had
accumulated. It was necessary to clear out his portfolios, and to give
circulation to both civil and political affairs, which began to clog; it
was, besides, urgent and glorious to date from Smolensk.

When, therefore, Borelli, second in command of Murat's staff, came to
inform him of the battle of Valoutina, he hesitated about receiving him;
and so deeply was he engaged in the business before him, that a minister
had to interfere to procure that officer admittance. The report of this
officer agitated Napoleon. "What say you?" he exclaimed: "what! you are
not enough! the enemy shows 60,000 men! Then it is a battle!" and he
began storming at the disobedience and inactivity of Junot. When Borelli
informed him of Gudin's mortal wound, Napoleon's grief was violent; he
gave vent to it in repeated questions and expressions of regret; then
with that strength of mind which was peculiar to him, he subdued his
uneasiness, postponed his anger, suspended his chagrin, and giving
himself up wholly to his occupation, he deferred until the morrow the
charge of battles, for night had come on; but afterwards the hopes of a
battle roused him, and he appeared next morning with the day on the
fields of Valoutina.

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