Book: History of the Expedition to Russia

C >> Count Philip de Segur >> History of the Expedition to Russia







CHAP. VIII.


Ney's troops, and those of Gudin's division, deprived of their general,
had drawn up there on the corses of their companions and of the
Russians, amidst the stumps of broken trees, on ground trampled by the
feet of the combatants, furrowed with balls, strewed with the fragments
of weapons, tattered garments, military utensils, carriages overthrown,
and scattered limbs; for such are the trophies of war, such the beauties
of a field of victory!

Gudin's battalions appeared to be melted down to platoons; the more they
were reduced, the prouder they seemed to be: close to them, one still
breathed the smell of burnt cartridges and gunpowder, with which the
ground and their apparel were impregnated, and their faces yet quite
begrimed. The emperor could not pass along their front without having to
avoid, to step over, or to tread upon carcases, and bayonets twisted by
the violence of the shock. But over all these horrors he threw a veil of
glory. His gratitude transformed this field of death into a field of
triumph, where, for some hours, satisfied honour and ambition held
exclusive sway.

He was sensible that it was high time to encourage his soldiers by
commendations and rewards. Never, therefore, were his looks more kind;
and as to his language, "this battle was the most glorious achievement
in our military history; the soldiers who heard him were men with whom
one might conquer the world; the slain, warriors who had died an
immortal death." He spoke thus, well aware that it is more especially
amid such destruction that men think of immortality.

He was profuse in his rewards; on the 12th, 21st, 127th of the line, and
the 17th light, he conferred eighty-seven decorations and promotions;
these were Gudin's regiments. The 127th had, before this, marched
without an eagle; for at that time it was necessary for a regiment to
earn its colours in a field of battle, to prove, that in the sequel it
would know how to preserve them there.

The emperor delivered the eagle to it with his own hands; he also
satisfied Ney's corps. His favours were as great in themselves as they
were in their form. The value of the gift was enhanced by the manner in
which he bestowed it. He was successively surrounded by each regiment as
by a family. There he appealed in a loud voice to the officers,
subalterns, and privates, inquiring who were the bravest of all those
brave men, or the most successful, and recompensing them on the spot.
The officers named, the soldiers confirmed, the emperor approved: thus,
as he himself observed, the elections were made instantaneously, in a
circle, in his presence, and confirmed with acclamations by the troops.

These paternal manners, which made the private soldier the military
comrade of the ruler of Europe; these forms, which revived the
still-regretted usages of the republic, delighted the troops. He was a
monarch, but the monarch of the Revolution; and they could not but love
a fortunate sovereign who led them on to fortune; in him there was every
thing to excite, and nothing to reproach them.

Never did field of victory exhibit a spectacle more capable of exalting;
the presentation of that eagle so richly merited, the pomp of these
promotions, the shouts of joy, the glory of those warriors, recompensed
on the very spot where it had just been acquired; their valour
proclaimed by a voice, every accent of which rung throughout attentive
Europe; by that great captain whose bulletins would carry their names
over the whole world, and more especially among their countrymen, and
into the bosoms of their families, which they would at once cheer and
make proud: how many favours at once! they were absolutely intoxicated
with them: he himself seemed at first to allow himself to share their
transports.

But when he was out of sight of his troops, the attitude of Ney and
Murat, and the words of Poniatowski, who was as frank and judicious in
council as he was intrepid in the field, tranquillized him; and when the
close heat of the day began to overpower him, and he learned from the
reports that his men had proceeded eight leagues without overtaking the
enemy, the spell was entirely dissolved. On his return to Smolensk, the
jolting of his carriage over the relics of the fight, the stoppages
caused on the road by the long file of the wounded who were crawling or
being carried back, and in Smolensk itself by the tumbrels of amputated
limbs about to be thrown away at a distance; in a word, all that is
horrible and odious out of fields of battle, completely disarmed him.
Smolensk was but one vast hospital, and the loud groans which issued
from it drowned the shout of glory which had just been raised on the
fields of Valoutina.

The reports of the surgeons were frightful: in that country a spirit
distilled from grain is used instead of wine and brandy made from
grapes. Narcotic plants are mixed with it. Our young soldiers, exhausted
with hunger and fatigue, conceived that this liquor would cheer them;
but its perfidious heat caused them to throw out at once all the fire
that was yet left in them, after which they sank exhausted, and became
the victims of disease.

Others, less sober, or more debilitated, were seized with dizziness,
stupefaction, and torpor; they squatted into the ditches and on the
roads. Their half-open, watery, and lack-lustre eyes seemed to watch,
with insensibility, death gradually seizing their whole frame; they
expired sullenly and without a groan.

At Wilna, it had not been possible to establish hospitals for more than
six thousand sick: convents, churches, synagogues, and barns, served to
receive the suffering multitude. In these dismal places, which were
sometimes unhealthy, but still too few, and too crowded, the sick were
frequently without food, without beds, without covering, and without
even straw and medicines. The surgeons were inadequate to the duty, so
that every thing, even to the very hospitals, contributed to create
disease, and nothing to cure.

At Witepsk, 400 wounded Russians were left on the field of battle: 300
more were abandoned in the town by their army; and as the inhabitants
had been taken away, these unfortunate wretches remained three days
before they were discovered, without assistance, huddled together
pell-mell, dead and dying, amidst the most horrible filth and infection:
they were at length collected together and mixed with our own wounded,
who, like those of the Russians, amounted to 700. Our surgeons tore up
their very shirts, and those of these poor creatures, to dress them; for
there already began to be a scarcity of linen.

When at length the wounds of these unfortunate men were healed, and they
required nothing but wholesome food to complete their cure, they
perished for want of sustenance: few either of the French or Russians
escaped. Those who were prevented from going in quest of food by the
loss of a limb, or by debility, were the first to sink. These disasters
occurred wherever the emperor was not in person; his presence bringing,
and his departure carrying, every thing along with it; and his orders,
in fact, not being scrupulously obeyed but within the circle of his own
observation.

At Smolensk, there was no want of hospitals; fifteen spacious brick
buildings were rescued from the flames: there were even found some wine,
brandy, and a few medical stores; and our reserve waggons for the
wounded at length rejoined us: but every thing ran short. The surgeons
were at work night and day, but the very second night, all the materials
for dressing the wounded were exhausted: there was no more linen, and
they were forced to use paper, found in the archives, in its stead.
Parchment served for splinters, and coarse cloth for compresses; and
they had no other substitute for lint than tow and birch down (_coton du
bouleau_).

Our surgeons were overwhelmed with dismay: for three days an hospital of
a hundred wounded had been forgotten; an accident led to its discovery:
Rapp penetrated into that abode of despair. I will spare my reader the
horror of a description. Wherefore communicate those terrible
impressions which harrow up the soul? Rapp did not spare them to
Napoleon, who instantly caused his own wine, and a sum of money, to be
distributed among such of those unfortunate men as a tenacious life
still animated, or whom a disgusting food had supported.

But to the vehement emotion which these reports excited in the bosom of
the emperor, was superadded an alarming consideration. The conflagration
of Smolensk was no longer, he saw, the effect of a fatal and unforeseen
accident of war, nor even the result of an act of despair: it was the
result of cool determination. The Russians had studied the time and
means, and taken as great pains to destroy, as are usually taken to
preserve.

The same day the courageous answers of one of their popes (the only one
found in Smolensk,) enlightened him still more in regard to the blind
fury which had been excited in the whole Russian nation. His
interpreter, alarmed by this animosity, conducted the pope to the
emperor. The venerable priest first reproached him, with firmness, for
his alleged sacrilegious acts: he knew not that it was the Russian
general himself who had caused the storehouses and churches to be set on
fire, and who had accused us of these outrages, in order that the
mercantile class and the peasantry might not separate their cause from
that of the nobility.

The emperor listened attentively. "But," said he to him at last, "has
your church been burned?"--"No, sire," replied the pope; "God will be
more powerful than you; he will protect it, for I have opened it to all
the unfortunate people whom the destruction of the city has deprived of
a home!"--"You are right," rejoined Napoleon, with emotion, "yes, God
will watch over the innocent victims of war; he will reward you for your
courage. Go, worthy priest, return to your post. Had all your popes
followed your example, they had not basely betrayed the mission of peace
which they received from heaven; if they had not abandoned the temples
which their presence alone renders sacred, my soldiers would have spared
your holy edifices; for we are all Christians, and your God is our God."

With these words, Napoleon sent back the priest to his temple with an
escort and some succours. A heart-rending shriek arose at the sight of
the soldiers penetrating into this asylum. A crowd of terrified women
and children thronged about the altar; but the pope, raising his voice,
cried; "be of good cheer: I have seen Napoleon; I have spoken to him.
Oh! how have we been deceived, my children! the emperor of France is not
the man that he has been represented to you. Learn that he and his
soldiers worship the same God as we do. The war which he wages is not
religious, it is a political quarrel with our emperor. His soldiers
fight only our soldiers. They do not slaughter, as we have been assured,
old men, women, and children. Cheer up, then, and let us thank God for
being relieved from the painful duty of hating them as heathen, impious
wretches, and incendiaries!" The pope then commenced a hymn of thanks,
in which they all joined with tearful eyes.

But these very words demonstrated how much the nation had been deceived.
The rest of the inhabitants had fled. Henceforward, then, it was not
their army alone, it was the population, it was all Russia, that fled
before us. The emperor felt that, with this population, one of his most
powerful engines of conquest was escaping from his hands.




CHAP. IX.


Ever since our arrival at Witepsk, Napoleon had in fact employed two of
his officers to sound the sentiments of these people. The object was,
to instil into them notions of liberty, and to compromise them in our
cause by an insurrection more or less general. But there had been
nothing to work upon excepting a few straggling savage boors, whom the
Russians had perhaps left as spies amongst us. This attempt had only
served to betray his plan, and to put the Russians on their guard
against it.

This expedient, moreover, was repugnant to Napoleon, whose nature
inclined him much more to the cause of kings than to that of nations. He
employed it but carelessly. Subsequently, at Moscow, he received several
addresses from different heads of families. They complained that they
were treated by the nobility like herds of cattle, which they might sell
or barter away at pleasure. They solicited Napoleon to proclaim the
abolition of slavery, and in the event of his doing so, they offered to
head partial insurrections, which they promised speedily to render
general.

These offers were rejected. We should have seen, among a barbarous
people, a barbarous liberty, an ungovernable, a horrible licentiousness:
a few partial revolts had formerly furnished the standard of them. The
Russian nobles, like the planters of St. Domingo, would have been
ruined. The fear of this prevailed in the mind of Napoleon, and was
confessed by him; it induced him to give up, for a time, all attempts to
excite a movement which he could not have regulated.

Besides, these masters had conceived a distrust of their slaves. Amidst
so many dangers, they distinguished this as the most urgent. They first
wrought upon the minds of their unfortunate serfs, debased by all sorts
of servitude. Their priests, whom they are accustomed to believe,
imposed upon them by delusive language; they persuaded these peasants
that we were legions of devils, commanded by Antichrist, infernal
spirits, whose very look would excite horror, and whose touch would
contaminate. Such of our prisoners as fell into their hands, remarked
that these poor creatures would not again make use of the vessels which
they had used, and that they reserved them for the most filthy animals.

As we advanced, however, our presence would have refuted all these
clumsy fables. But behold! these nobles fell back with their serfs into
the interior of the country, as at the approach of a dire contagion.
Property, habitations, all that could detain them, and be serviceable to
us, were sacrificed. They interposed famine, fire, and the desert,
between them and us; for it was as much against their serfs as against
Napoleon that this mighty resolution was executed. It was no longer,
therefore, a war of kings that was to be prosecuted, but a war of class,
a war of party, a war of religion, a national war, a combination of all
sorts of war.

The emperor then first perceived the enormous magnitude of his
enterprise; the farther he advanced, the more it became magnified. So
long as he only encountered kings, to him, who was greater than all of
them, their defeats were but sport; but the kings being conquered, he
had now to do with people; and it was another Spain, but remote, barren,
infinite, that he had found at the opposite extremity of Europe. He was
daunted, hesitated, and paused.

At Witepsk, whatever resolution he might have taken, he wanted Smolensk,
and till he should be at Smolensk, he seemed to have deferred coming to
any determination. For this reason he was again seized with the same
perplexity: it was now more embarrassing, as the flames, the prevalent
epidemic, and the victims which surrounded him, had aggravated every
thing; a fever of hesitation attacked him; his eyes turned towards Kief,
Petersburgh, and Moscow.

At Kief he should envelop Tchitchakof and his army; he should rid the
right flank and the rear of the grand army, of annoyance; he should
cover the Polish provinces most productive of men, provisions, and
horses; while fortified cantonments at Mohilef, Smolensk, Witepsk,
Polotsk, Duenabourg, and Riga, would defend the rest. Behind this line,
and during the winter, he might raise and organize all ancient Poland,
and hurl it in the spring upon Russia, oppose nation to nation, and
render the war equal.

At Smolensk, however, he was at the point where the Petersburgh and
Moscow roads meet, 29 marches from the first of these capitals, and 15
from the other. In Petersburgh, the centre of the government, the knot
to which all the threads of the administration were united, the brain of
Russia, were her military and naval arsenals; in short, it was the only
point of communication between Russia and England, of which he should
possess himself. The victory of Polotsk, of which he had just received
intelligence, seemed to urge him in that direction. By marching in
concert with Saint-Cyr upon Petersburgh, he should envelop Wittgenstein,
and cause Riga to fall before Macdonald.

On the other hand, in Moscow, it was the nobility, as well as the
nation, that he should attack in its property, in its ancient honour;
the road to that capital was shorter; it presented fewer obstacles and
more resources; the Russian main army, which he could not neglect, and
which he must destroy, was there, together with the chances of a battle,
and the hope of giving a shock to the nation, by striking at its heart
in this national war.

Of these three plans the latter appeared to him the only one
practicable, in spite of the advancing season. The history of Charles
XII. was, nevertheless, before his eyes; not that of Voltaire, which he
had just thrown aside with impatience, judging it to be romantic and
inaccurate, but the journal of Adlerfield, which he read, but which did
not stop him. On comparing that expedition with his own, he found a
thousand differences between them, on which he laid great stress; for
who can be a judge in his own cause? and of what use is the example of
the past, in a world where there never were two men, two things, or two
situations exactly alike?

At any rate, about this period the name of Charles XII. was frequently
heard to drop from his lips.




CHAP. X.


But the news which arrived from all quarters excited his ardour quite as
much as it had been at Witepsk. His lieutenants seemed to have done more
than himself: the actions of Mohilef, Molodeczna, and Valoutina, were
regular battles, in which Davoust, Schwartzenberg, and Ney, were
conquerors; on his right, his line of operation seemed to be covered;
the enemy's army was flying before him; on his left, the Duke of Reggio,
after drawing Wittgenstein upon Polotsk, was attacked at Slowna, on the
17th of August. The attack of Wittgenstein was furious and obstinate; it
failed; but he retained his offensive position, and Marshal Oudinot had
been wounded. Saint-Cyr succeeded him in the command of that army,
composed of about 30,000 French, Swiss, and Bavarians. The very next day
this general, who disliked any command unless when he exercised it alone
and in chief, availed himself of it, to give his measure to his own
troops and to the enemy; but coolly, according to his character, and
combining every thing.

From daybreak till five in the evening, he contrived to amuse the enemy
by the proposal of an agreement to withdraw the wounded, and more
especially by demonstrations of retreat. At the same time he silently
rallied all his combatants, drew them up into three columns of attack,
and concealed them behind the village of Spas and rising grounds.

At five o'clock, all being ready, and Wittgenstein's vigilance asleep,
Saint-Cyr gave the signal: his artillery immediately began firing, and
his columns rushed forward. The Russians, being taken by surprise,
resisted in vain; their right was first broken, and their centre soon
fled in disorder: they abandoned 1000 prisoners, 20 pieces of cannon, a
field of battle covered with slain, and the offensive, which Saint-Cyr,
being too weak, could only affect to resume, for the purpose of better
defending himself.

In this short but severe and sanguinary conflict, the right wing of the
Russians, which was supported by the Duena, made an obstinate resistance.
It was necessary to charge it with the bayonet, amidst a thick fire of
grape-shot; every thing succeeded, but when it was supposed that there
was no more to do but to pursue, all was nearly lost; some Russian
dragoons, according to some, and horse-guards, according to others,
risked a charge on a battery of Saint-Cyr's; a French brigade placed to
support it advanced, then suddenly turned its back and fled through the
midst of our cannon, which it prevented from being fired. The Russians
reached them pell-mell with our men; they sabred the gunners, upset the
pieces, and pursued our horse so closely, that the latter, more and more
terrified, ran in disorder upon their commander-in-chief and his staff,
whom they overthrew. General Saint-Cyr was obliged to fly on foot. He
threw himself into the bottom of a ravine, which sheltered him from the
squall. The Russian dragoons were already close to Polotsk, when a
prompt and skilful manoeuvre of Berkheim and the 4th French
cuirassiers put an end to this warm affair. The Russians betook
themselves to the woods.

The following day Saint-Cyr sent a body of men in pursuit of them, but
merely to observe their retreat, to mark the victory, and to reap some
more of its fruits. During the two succeeding months, up to the 18th of
October, Wittgenstein kept at a respectful distance. The French general,
on his part, confined his attention to observing the enemy, keeping up
his communications with Macdonald, with Witepsk, and Smolensk,
fortifying himself in his position of Polotsk, and, above all, finding
there means of subsistence.

In this action of the 18th, four generals, four colonels, and many
officers, were wounded. Among them the army remarked the Bavarian
Generals Deroy and Liben. They expired on the 22d of August. These
generals were of the same age; they had belonged to the same regiment,
had made the same campaigns, proceeded at nearly an equal pace in their
perilous career, which was gloriously terminated by the same death, and
in the same battle. It was thought right not to separate in the tomb
these warriors, whom neither life nor death had been able to part; one
grave received the remains of both.

On the news of this victory, the emperor sent to General Saint-Cyr the
staff of Marshal of the empire. He placed a great number of crosses at
his disposal, and subsequently approved most of the promotions which
were applied for.

Notwithstanding this success, the determination to proceed beyond
Smolensk was too perilous for Napoleon to decide on it alone: it was
requisite that he should contrive to be drawn into it. Beyond Valoutina,
Ney's corps, which was fatigued, had been replaced by that of Davoust.
Murat as king, as brother-in-law to the emperor, and agreeably to his
order, was to command it. Ney had submitted to this, less from
condescension than from conformity of disposition. They agreed in their
ardour.

But Davoust, whose methodical and tenacious genius was a complete
contrast to the fiery impetuosity of Murat, and who was rendered proud
by the remembrance of, and the titles derived from two great victories,
was piqued at being placed in this dependence. These haughty chiefs, who
were about the same age, had been companions in war, and had mutually
witnessed each other's elevation; they were both spoiled by the habit of
having obeyed only a great man, and were by no means fit to command one
another; Murat, in particular, who was too often unable to command
himself.

Davoust nevertheless obeyed, but with an ill grace, and imperfectly, as
wounded pride generally does. He affected immediately to break off all
direct correspondence with the emperor. The latter, surprised at this,
ordered him to renew it, alleging his distrust of the reports of Murat.
Davoust made a handle of this avowal, and again asserted his
independence. Henceforward the vanguard had two leaders. Thus the
emperor, fatigued, distressed, overloaded with business of every kind,
and forced to show indulgence to his lieutenants, divided his power as
well as his armies, in spite of his precepts and his former examples.
Circumstances, which he had so often controlled, became stronger than
him, and controlled him in their turn.

Meanwhile Barclay, having fallen back without resistance nearly as far
as Dorogobouje, Murat had no need of Davoust, and no occasion presented
itself for misunderstanding; but about eleven in the forenoon of the 23d
of August, a thick wood, a few wersts from that town, which the king
wished to reconnoitre, was warmly disputed with him: he was obliged to
carry it twice.

Murat, surprised at such a resistance at that early hour, pushed on, and
piercing through this curtain, beheld the whole Russian army drawn up in
order of battle. The narrow ravine of the Luja separated him from it: it
was noon; the extent of the Russian lines, especially towards our right,
the preparations, the hour, the place, which was that where Barclay had
just rejoined Bagration; the choice of the ground, well suited for a
general engagement; all gave him reason to anticipate a battle; and he
sent a dispatch to the emperor to apprise him of it.

At the same time he ordered Montbrun to pass the ravine on his right
with his cavalry, in order to reconnoitre and get upon the left of the
enemy. Davoust, and his five divisions of infantry, extended themselves
on that side; he protected Montbrun: the king recalled them to his left,
on the high-road, designing, it is said, to support Montbrun's flank
movement by some demonstrations in front.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.