Book: History of the Expedition to Russia

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Davoust replied, that "This would be sacrificing our right wing, through
which the enemy would get behind us on the high-road, our only means of
retreat; that thus he would force us to a battle, which he, Davoust, had
orders to avoid, and which he would avoid, his force being insufficient,
the position bad, and he being moreover under the command of a leader in
whom he had but little confidence." He then wrote immediately to
Napoleon, urging him to come up without loss of time, if he would not
have Murat engage without him.

On this intelligence, which he received in the night of the 24th of
August, Napoleon joyfully threw aside his indecision, which to this
enterprising and decisive genius was absolute torture: he hurried
forward with his guard, and proceeded twelve leagues without halting;
but on the evening of the preceding day, the enemy's army had again
disappeared.

On our side, his retreat was attributed to the movement of Montbrun; on
the part of the Russians to Barclay, and to a bad position chosen by the
chief of his staff, who had taken up ground in his own disfavour,
instead of making it serve to his advantage. Bagration was the first who
perceived it; his rage knew no bounds, and he proclaimed it treason.

Discord reigned in the Russian camp as well as in our advanced guard.
Confidence in their commander, that strength of armies, was wanting; his
every step seemed a blunder; each resolution that was taken the very
worst. The loss of Smolensk had soured all; the junction of the two
_corps d'armee_ increased the evil; the stronger the Russian force felt
itself, the weaker did its general seem to it. The outcry became
general; another leader was loudly called for. A few prudent men,
however, interposed: Kutusof was announced, and the humbled pride of the
Russians awaited him in order to fight.

The emperor, on his part, already at Dorogobouje, no longer hesitated;
he knew that he carried every where with him the fate of Europe; that
wherever he might be, that would always be the place where the destiny
of nations would be decided; that he might therefore advance, fearless
of the threatening consequences of the defection of the Swedes and
Turks. Thus he neglected the hostile armies of Essen at Riga, of
Wittgenstein before Polotsk, of Ertell before Bobruisk, and of
Tchitchakof in Volhynia. They consisted of 120,000 men, whose number
could not but keep gradually augmenting; he passed them, and suffered
himself to be surrounded by them with indifference, assured that all
these vain obstacles of war and policy would be swept away by the very
first thunderbolt which he should launch.

And yet, his column of attack, which was 185,000 strong at his departure
from Witepsk, was already reduced to 157,000; it was diminished by
28,000 men, half of whom occupied Witepsk, Orcha, Mohilef, and Smolensk.
The rest had been killed or wounded, or were straggling, and plundering
in his rear our allies and the French themselves.

But 157,000 men were sufficient to destroy the Russian army by a
complete victory, and to take Moscow. As to his base of operation,
notwithstanding the 120,000 Russians by whom it was threatened, it
appeared to be secure. Lithuania, the Duena, the Dnieper, and lastly
Smolensk, were or would soon be covered towards Riga and Duenabourg by
Macdonald and 32,000 men; towards Polotsk, by Saint-Cyr, with 30,000; at
Witepsk, Smolensk, and Mohilef, by Victor and 40,000; before Bobruisk,
by Dombrowski and 12,000; and on the Bug by Schwartzenberg and Regnier,
at the head of 45,000 men. Napoleon reckoned besides on the divisions of
Loison and Durutte, 22,000 strong, which were already approaching
Koenigsberg and Warsaw; and on reinforcements to the amount of 80,000,
all of which would enter Russia before the middle of November.

He should thus have 280,000 men, including the Lithuanian and Polish
levies, to support him, while, with 155,000 more, he made an incursion
of 93 leagues; for such was the distance between Smolensk and Moscow.

But these 280,000 men were commanded by six different leaders, all
independent of each other, and the most elevated of them, he who
occupied the centre, and who seemed to be appointed to act as an
intermediate link, to give some unity to the operations of the other
five, was a minister of peace, and not of war.

Besides, the same causes which had already diminished, by one-third, the
French forces which first entered Russia, could not fail to disperse or
to destroy a still greater proportion of all these reinforcements. Most
of them were coming by detachments, formed provisionally into marching
battalions under officers new to them, whom they were to leave the first
day, without the incentive of discipline, _esprit de corps_, or glory,
and traversing an exhausted country, which the season and the climate
would be rendering daily more bare and more rude.

Meanwhile Napoleon beheld Dorogobouje in ashes, like Smolensk,
especially the quarter of the merchants, those who had most to lose,
whom their riches might have detained or brought back amongst us, and
who, from their situation, formed a kind of intermediate class, a
commencement of the third estate, which liberty was likely to seduce.

He was perfectly aware that he was quitting Smolensk, as he had come
thither, with the hope of a battle, which the indecision and discord of
the Russian generals had as yet deferred; but his resolution was taken;
he would hear of nothing but what was calculated to support him in it.
He persisted in pursuing the track of the enemy; his hardihood increased
with their prudence; their circumspection he called pusillanimity, their
retreat flight; he despised, that he might hope.




BOOK VII.




CHAP. I.


The emperor had proceeded with such expedition to Dorogobouje, that he
was obliged to halt there, in order to wait for his army, and to leave
Murat to pursue the enemy. He set out again on the 26th of August; the
army marched in three columns abreast; the Emperor, Murat, Davoust, and
Ney in the centre, on the high-road to Moscow; Poniatowski on the right;
and the army of Italy on the left.

The principal column, that of the centre, found nothing on a road where
its advanced guard itself had to subsist entirely on the leavings of the
Russians; it could not digress from its direction, for want of time, in
so rapid a march. Besides, the columns on the right and left consumed
every thing on either side of it. In order to live better, it ought to
have set out later every day, halted earlier, and then extended itself
more on its flanks during the night; which could be done without
imprudence when the enemy was so near at hand.

At Smolensk orders had been issued, as at Witepsk, to take, at starting,
provisions for several days. The emperor was aware of the difficulty of
collecting them, but he reckoned upon the diligence of the officers and
the troops; they had warning,--that was sufficient; they would contrive
to provide themselves with necessaries. They had acquired the habit of
doing so; and it was really a curious sight to observe the voluntary and
continual efforts of so many men to follow a single individual to such
great distances. The existence of the army was a prodigy that was daily
renewed, by the active, industrious, and intelligent spirit of the
French and Polish troops, by their habit of surmounting all
difficulties, and by their fondness for the hazards and irregularities
of this dreadful game of an adventurous life.

In the train of each regiment there were a multitude of those diminutive
horses with which Poland swarms, a great number of carts of the country,
which required to be incessantly replaced with fresh ones, and a drove
of cattle. The baggage-waggons were driven by soldiers, for they turned
their hands to every trade. They were missed in the ranks, it is true;
but here the want of provisions, the necessity for transporting every
thing with them, excused this prodigious train: it required a second
army, as it were, to carry or draw what was indispensable for the first.

In this prompt organization, adopted while marching, the army had
accommodated itself to all the local customs and difficulties; the
genius of the soldiers had admirably made the most of the scanty
resources of the country. As to the officers, as the general orders
always took for granted regular distributions which were never made,
each of them, according to the degree of his zeal, intelligence, and
firmness, appropriated to himself more or less of this spoil, and had
converted individual pillage into regular contributions.

For it was only by excursions on the flanks and into an unknown country
that any provisions could be procured. Every evening, when the army
halted, and the bivouacs were established, detachments, rarely commanded
by divisions, sometimes by brigades, and most commonly by regiments,
went in quest of necessaries, and penetrated into the country; a few
wersts from the road they found all the villages inhabited, and were not
very hostilely received; but as they could not make themselves
understood, and besides wanted every thing, and that instantaneously,
the peasants were soon seized with a panic and fled into the woods,
whence they issued again as no very formidable partizans.

The detachments meanwhile plentifully regaled themselves, and rejoined
their corps next day or some days afterwards, laden with all that they
had collected; and it frequently happened that they were plundered in
their turn by their comrades belonging to the other corps whom they
chanced to fall in with. Hence animosities, which would have infallibly
led to most sanguinary intestine conflicts, had not all been
subsequently overtaken by the same misfortune, and involved in the
horrors of a common disaster.

Till the return of their detachments, the soldiers who remained with
their eagles lived on what they could find on the military route; in
general it consisted of new rye, which they bruised and boiled. Owing to
the cattle which followed, there was less want of meat than of bread;
but the length, and especially the rapidity of the marches, occasioned
the loss of many of these animals: they were suffocated by the heat and
dust; when, therefore, they came to water, they ran into it with such
fury, that many of them were drowned, while others drank so
immoderately, as to swell themselves out till they were unable to walk.

It was remarked, as before we reached Smolensk, that the divisions of
the first corps continued to be the most numerous; their detachments,
better disciplined, brought back more, and did less injury to the
inhabitants. Those who remained with their colours lived on the contents
of their knapsacks, the regular appearance of which relieved the eye,
fatigued with a disorder that was nearly universal.

Each of these knapsacks, reduced to what was strictly necessary in point
of apparel, contained two shirts, two pair of shoes with nails, and a
pair of extra soles, a pair of pantaloons and half-gaiters of cloth; a
few articles requisite to cleanliness, a bandage, and a quantity of
lint, and sixty cartridges.

In the two sides were placed four biscuits of sixteen ounces each; under
these, and at the bottom, was a long, narrow, linen bag, filled with ten
pounds of flour. The whole knapsack and its contents, together with the
straps and the hood, rolled up and fastened at top, weighed
thirty-three pounds twelve ounces.

Each soldier carried also a linen bag, slung in form of a shoulder-belt,
containing two loaves of three pounds each. Thus with his sabre, his
loaded knapsack, three flints, his turn-screw, his belt and musket, he
had to carry fifty-eight pounds weight, and was provided with bread for
four days, biscuit for four, flour for seven, and sixty rounds of
ammunition.

Behind it were carriages laden with provisions for six more days; but it
was impossible to reckon with confidence on these vehicles, picked up on
the spot, which would have been so convenient in any other country with
a smaller army, and in a more regular war.

When the flour-bag was emptied, it was filled with any corn that could
be found, and which was ground at the first mill, if any chanced to be
met with; if not, by the hand-mills which followed the regiments, or
which were found in the villages, for the Russians are scarcely
acquainted with any others. It took sixteen men twelve hours to grind in
one of them the corn necessary for one hundred and thirty men for one
day.

As every house in this country has an oven, little want was felt on that
score; bakers abounded; for the regiments of the first corps contained
men of all trades, so that articles of food and clothing were all made
or repaired by them during the march. They were colonies uniting the
character of civilized and nomadic. The emperor had first conceived the
idea, which the genius of the prince of Eckmuehl had appropriated; he had
every thing he wanted, time, place, and men to carry it into execution;
but these three elements of success were less at the disposal of the
other chiefs. Besides, their characters being more impetuous and less
methodical, would scarcely have derived the same advantages from it;
with a less organizing genius, they would therefore have had more
obstacles to surmount; the emperor had not paid sufficient attention to
these differences, which were productive of baneful effects.




CHAP. II.


It was from Slawkowo, a few leagues beyond Dorogobouje, that Napoleon
sent orders, on the 27th of August, to marshal Victor, who was then on
the Niemen, to advance to Smolensk. This marshal's left was to occupy
Witepsk, his right Mohilef, and his centre Smolensk. There he would
succour Saint-Cyr, in case of need, serve for a point of support to the
army of Moscow, and keep up his communications with Lithuania.

It was also from the same imperial head-quarters that he published the
details of his review at Valoutina, with the intention of proclaiming to
the present and future ages the names even of the private soldiers who
had there distinguished themselves. But he added, that at Smolensk "the
conduct of the Poles had astonished the Russians, who had been
accustomed to despise them." These words drew from the Poles an outcry
of indignation, and the emperor smiled at an anger which he had
foreseen, and the effects of which were designed to fall exclusively on
the Russians.

On this march he took delight in dating from the heart of Old Russia a
number of decrees, which would be circulated in the meanest hamlets of
France; from the desire of appearing to be present every where at once,
and filling the earth more and more with his power: the offspring of
that inconceiveable and expanding greatness of soul, whose ambition was
at first a mere plaything, but finally coveted the empire of the world.

It is true that at the same time there was so little order about him at
Slawkowo, that his guard burned, during the night, to warm themselves,
the bridge which they were ordered to guard, and the only one by which
he could, the next day, leave his imperial quarters. This disorder,
however, like many others, proceeded not from insubordination, but from
thoughtlessness; it was corrected as soon as it was perceived.

The very same day Murat drove the enemy beyond the Osma, a narrow river,
but enclosed with high banks, and of great depth, like most of the
rivers of this country, the effect of the snow, and which, at the period
of its general melting, prevents inundations. The Russian rear-guard,
covered by this obstacle, faced about and established itself on the
heights of the opposite bank. Murat ordered the ravine to be examined,
and a ford was discovered. It was through this narrow and insecure
defile that he dared to march against the Russians, to venture between
the river and their position; thus cutting off from himself all retreat,
and turning a skirmish into a desperate action. In fact, the enemy
descended in force from their height, and drove him back to the very
brink of the ravine, into which they had well-nigh precipitated him. But
Murat persisted in his error; he braved it out, and converted it into a
success. The 4th lancers carried the position, and the Russians went to
pass the night not far off; content with having made us purchase at a
dear rate a quarter of a league of ground, which they would have given
up to us for nothing during the night.

At the moment of the most imminent danger, a battery of the prince of
Eckmuehl twice refused to fire. Its commanding officer pleaded his
instructions, which forbade him, upon pain of being broke, to fight
without orders from Davoust. These orders arrived, in time, according to
some, but too late according to others. I relate this incident, because,
on the following day, it was the occasion of a violent quarrel between
Murat and Davoust, in presence of the emperor, at Semlewo.

The king reproached the prince with his tardy circumspection, and more
especially with an enmity which dated from the expedition to Egypt. In
the vehemence of his passion he told him, that if there was any quarrel
between them they ought to settle it by themselves, but that the army
ought not to be made the sufferers for it.

Davoust, irritated in his turn, accused the king of temerity; according
to him "his thoughtless ardour was incessantly compromising his troops,
and wasting to no purpose, their lives, their strength, and their
stores. It was right that the emperor should at last know what was daily
occurring in his advanced guard. Every morning the enemy had disappeared
before it; but this experience led to no alteration whatever in the
march: the troops, therefore, set out late, all keeping the high-road,
and forming a single column, and in this manner they advanced in the
void till about noon.

"The enemy's rear-guard, ready to fight, was then discovered behind some
marshy ravine, the bridges over which had been broken down, and which
was commanded from the opposite bank. The light troops were instantly
brought into action, then the first regiments of cavalry that were at
hand, and then the artillery; but in general out of reach, or against
straggling cossacks, who were not worth the trouble. At length, after
vain and sanguinary attempts made in front, the king took it into his
head to reconnoitre the force and position of the enemy more accurately,
and to manoeuvre; and he sent for the infantry.

"Then after having long waited in this endless column, the ravine was
crossed on the left or on the right of the Russians, who retired under a
fire of their small arms to a new position; where the same resistance,
and the same mode of march and attack, exposed us to the same losses and
the same delays.

"In this manner the king went on from position to position, till he came
to one which was stronger or better defended. It was usually about five
in the evening, sometimes later, rarely earlier; but in this case the
tenacity of the Russians, and the hour, plainly indicated that their
whole army was there, and was determined to pass the night on the spot.

"For it could not be denied that this retreat of the Russians was
conducted with admirable order. The ground alone dictated it to them and
not Murat. Their positions were so well chosen, taken so seasonably, and
each defended so exactly in proportion to its strength, and the time
which their general wished to gain, that in truth their movements seemed
to form part of a plan which had been long determined on, carefully
traced, and executed with scrupulous exactness.

"They never abandoned a post till the moment before they were likely to
be driven from it.

"In the evening they established themselves early in a good position,
leaving under arms no more troops than were absolutely necessary to
defend it, while the remainder rested and refreshed themselves."

Davoust added that, "so far from profiting by this example, the king
paid no regard either to the hour, the strength of the situation, or the
resistance; that he dashed on among his tirailleurs, dancing about in
front of the enemy's line, feeling it in every part; putting himself in
a passion, giving his orders with loud shouts, and making himself hoarse
with repeating them; exhausting every thing, cartouch-boxes,
ammunition-waggons, men and horses, combatants and non-combatants, and
keeping all the troops under arms till night had set in.

"Then, indeed, it was found necessary to desist, and to take up their
quarters where they were; but they no longer knew where to find
necessaries. It was really pitiful to hear the soldiers wandering in the
dark, groping about, as it were, for forage, water, wood, straw, and
provisions, and then, unable to find their bivouacs again, calling out
to one another lest they should lose themselves, during the whole night.
Scarcely had they time, not to sleep, but to prepare their food.
Overwhelmed with fatigue, they cursed the hardships they had to endure,
till daylight and the enemy came to rouse them again.

"It was not the advanced guard alone that suffered in this manner, but
the whole of the cavalry. Every evening Murat had left behind him 20,000
men on horseback and under arms, on the high-road. This long column had
remained all day without eating or drinking, amidst a cloud of dust,
under a burning sky; ignorant of what was passing before it, advancing a
few paces from one quarter of an hour to another, then halting to deploy
among fields of rye, but without daring to take off the bridles and to
allow their famished horses to feed, because the king kept them
incessantly on the alert. It was to advance five or six leagues that
they thus passed sixteen tedious hours--particularly arduous for the
cuirassier horses, which had more to carry than the others, though
weaker, as the largest horses in general are, and which required more
food; hence their great carcasses were worn down to skeletons, their
flanks collapsed, they crawled rather than walked, and every moment one
was seen staggering, and another falling under his rider, who left him
to his fate."

Davoust concluded with saying, that "in this manner the whole of the
cavalry would perish; Murat, however, might dispose of that as he
pleased, but as for the infantry of the first corps, so long as he had
the command of it, he would not suffer it to be thrown away in that
manner."

The king was not backward in replying. While the emperor was listening
to them, he was at the same time playing with a Russian ball, which he
kicked about with his foot. It seemed as if there was something in the
misunderstanding between these chiefs which did not displease him. He
attributed their animosity entirely to their ardour, well aware that of
all passions glory is the most jealous.

The impatient ardour of Murat gratified his own. As the troops had
nothing to live upon but what they found, every thing was consumed at
the moment; for this reason it was necessary to make short work with the
enemy, and to proceed rapidly. Besides, the general crisis in Europe was
too strong, his situation too critical to remain there, and himself too
impatient; he wished to bring matters to a close at any rate, in order
to extricate himself.

The impetuosity of the king, therefore, seemed to suit his anxiety
better than the methodical prudence of the Prince of Eckmuehl.
Accordingly, when he dismissed them, he said mildly to Davoust, that
"one person could not possess every species of merit; that he knew
better how to fight a battle than to push a rear-guard; and that if
Murat had pursued Bagration in Lithuania, he would probably not have
allowed him to escape." It is even asserted that he reproached the
marshal with a restless disposition, an anxiety to appropriate to
himself all the commands; less, indeed, from ambition than zeal, and
that all might go on better; but yet this zeal had its inconveniences.
He then sent them away with an injunction to agree better in future.

The two chiefs returned to their commands, and to their animosity. As
the war was confined to the head of the column, that also was the scene
of their disputes.




CHAP. III.


On the 28th of August, the army crossed the vast plains of the
government of Wiazma: it marched in all haste, the whole together,
through fields, and several regiments abreast, each forming a short,
close column. The high-road was left for the artillery, its waggons, and
those carrying the sick and wounded. The emperor, on horseback, was seen
every where: Murat's letters, and the approach to Wiazma, deceived him
once more with the hope of a battle: he was heard calculating on the
march the thousands of cannon-balls which he would require to crush the
hostile army.

Napoleon had assigned its place to the baggage: he published an order
for burning all vehicles which should be seen among the troops, not
excepting carts loaded with provisions, for they might embarrass the
movements of the columns, and compromise their safety in case of attack.
Having met in his way with the carriage of General Narbonne, his
aid-de-camp, he himself caused it to be set on fire, before the face of
that general, and that instantaneously, without suffering it to be
emptied; an order which was only severe, although it appeared harsh,
because he himself began by enforcing its execution, which, however, was
not followed up.

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