Book: History of the Expedition to Russia

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Wilson continued to insist on his agreeing to a decisive engagement on
the following day, and on his refusal, he asked, "Was he then determined
to open a free passage for Napoleon? to allow him to escape with his
victory? What a cry of indignation would be raised in Petersburgh, in
London, throughout all Europe! Did he not already hear the murmurs of
his own troops?"

Kutusoff, irritated at this, replied, that "he would certainly rather
make a bridge of gold for the enemy than compromise his army, and with
it the fate of the whole empire. Was not Napoleon fleeing? why then stop
him and force him to conquer? The season was sufficient to destroy him:
of all the allies of Russia, they could rely with most confidence on
winter; and he should wait for its assistance. As for the Russian army,
it was under his command, and it would obey him in spite of the clamours
of Wilson; Alexander, when informed of his proceedings, would approve
them. What did he care for England? was it for her that he was fighting?
He was a true-born Russian, his fondest wish was to see Russia
delivered, and delivered she would be without risking the chance of
another battle; and as for the rest of Europe, it was nothing to him
whether it was under the dominion of France or England."

Thus was Wilson repulsed, and yet Kutusoff, shut up with the French army
in the elevated plain of Malo-Yaroslawetz, was compelled to put himself
into the most threatening attitude. He there drew up, on the 25th, all
his divisions, and seven hundred pieces of artillery. No doubts were any
longer entertained in the two armies that a decisive day had arrived:
Wilson was of that opinion himself. He remarked that the Russian lines
had at their back a muddy ravine, across which there was an unsafe
bridge. This only way of retreat, in the sight of an enemy, appeared to
him to be impracticable. Kutusoff was now in such a situation that he
must either conquer or perish; and the Englishman was hugging himself at
the prospect of a decisive engagement: whether its issue proved fatal to
Napoleon or dangerous to Russia, it must be bloody, and England could
not but be a gainer by it.

Still uneasy, however, he went at night through the ranks: he was
delighted to hear Kutusoff swear that he was at length going to fight;
he triumphed on seeing all the Russian generals preparing for a terrible
conflict; Beningsen alone had still his doubts on the subject. The
Englishman, nevertheless, considering that the position no longer
admitted of falling back, at length lay down to wait for daylight, when
about three in the morning a general order for retreat awoke him. All
his efforts were ineffectual. Kutusoff had resolved to direct his flight
southward, first to Gonczarewo, and then beyond Kalouga; and at the Oka
every thing was by this time ready for his passage.

It was at that very instant that Napoleon ordered his troops to retire
northward on Mojaisk. The two armies therefore turned their backs on
each other, mutually deceiving each other by means of their rear-guards.

On the part of Kutusoff, Wilson asserts, that his retreat was like a
rout. Cavalry, cannon, carriages, and battalions thronged from all sides
to the entrance of the bridge, against which the Russian army was
backed. There all these columns, hurrying from the right, the left, and
the centre, met, clashed, and became blended into so enormous and so
dense a mass, that it lost all power of motion. It took several hours to
disentangle it and to clear the passage. A few balls discharged by
Davoust, which he regarded as thrown away, fell among this confused
crowd.

Napoleon needed but to have advanced upon this disorderly rabble. It was
after the greatest effort, that of Malo-Yaroslawetz, had been made, and
when he had nothing to do but to march, that he retreated. But such is
war! in which it is impossible to attempt too much or to be too daring.
One army knows not what the other is doing. The advanced posts are the
exterior of these two great hostile bodies, by means of which they
overawe one another. What an abyss there is between two armies that are
in the presence of each other!

Besides, it was perhaps because the Emperor had been wanting in prudence
at Moscow that he was now deficient in audacity: he was worn out; the
two affairs with the Cossacks had disgusted him: he felt for his
wounded; so many horrors disheartened him, and like men of extreme
resolutions, having ceased to hope for a complete victory, he determined
upon a precipitate retreat.

From that moment he had nothing in his view but Paris, just as on
leaving Paris he saw nothing but Moscow. It was on the 26th of October
that the fatal movement of our retreat commenced. Davoust with
twenty-five thousand men remained as a rear-guard. While he advanced a
few paces, and, without being aware of it, spread consternation among
the Russians, the grand army in astonishment turned its back on them. It
marched with downcast eyes, as if ashamed and humbled. In the midst of
it, its commander, gloomy and silent, seemed to be anxiously measuring
his line of communication with the fortresses on the Vistula.

For the space of more than two hundred and fifty leagues it offered but
two points where he could halt and rest, the first, Smolensk, and the
second, Minsk. He had made these two towns his two great depots, where
immense magazines were established. But Wittgenstein, still before
Polotsk, threatened the left flank of the former, and Tchitchakof,
already at Bresk-litowsky, the right flank of the latter. Wittgenstein's
force was gaining strength by recruits and fresh corps which he was
daily receiving, and by the gradual diminution of that of Saint Cyr.

Napoleon, however, reckoned upon the Duke of Belluno and his thirty-six
thousand fresh troops. The _corps d'armee_ had been at Smolensk ever
since the beginning of September. He reckoned also upon detachments
being sent from his depots, on the sick and wounded who had recovered,
and on the stragglers, who would be rallied and formed at Wilna into
marching battalions. All these would successively come into line, and
fill up the chasms made in his ranks by the sword, famine, and disease.
He should therefore have time to regain that position on the Duena and
the Borysthenes, where he wished it to be believed that his presence,
added to that of Victor, Saint Cyr, and Macdonald, would overawe
Wittgenstein, check Kutusoff, and threaten Alexander even in his second
capital.

He therefore proclaimed that he was going to take post on the Duena. But
it was not upon that river and the Borysthenes that his thoughts rested:
he was sensible that it was not with a harassed and reduced army that he
could guard the interval between those two rivers and their courses,
which the ice would speedily efface. He placed no reliance on a sea of
snow six feet deep, with which winter would speedily cover those parts,
but to which it would also give solidity: the whole then would be one
wide road for the enemy to reach him, to penetrate into the intervals
between his wooden cantonments, scattered over a frontier of two hundred
leagues, and to burn them.

Had he at first stopped there, as he declared he should on his arrival
at Witepsk; had he there taken proper measures for preserving and
recruiting his army; had Tormasof, Tchitchakof and Hoertel been driven
out of Volhynia; had he raised a hundred thousand Cossacks in those rich
provinces; his winter-quarters would then have been habitable. But now,
nothing was ready for him there; and not only was his force inadequate
to the purpose, but Tchitchakof, a hundred leagues in his rear, would
still threaten his communications with Germany and France and his
retreat. It was therefore at a hundred leagues beyond Smolensk, in a
more compact position, behind the morasses of the Berezina, it was to
Minsk, that it was necessary to repair in search of winter-quarters,
from which he was forty marches distant.

But should he arrive there in time? He had reason to think so.
Dombrowski and his Poles, placed around Bobruisk, would be sufficient to
keep Ertell in check. As for Schwartzenberg, that general had been
victorious; he was at the head of forty-two thousand Austrians, Saxons,
and Poles, whom Durutte, and his French division, from Warsaw, would
augment to more than fifty thousand men. He had pursued Tormasof as far
as the Styr.

It was true that the Russian army of Moldavia had just formed a junction
with the remnant of the army of Volhynia; that Tchitchakof, an active
and resolute general, had assumed the command of fifty-five thousand
Russians; that the Austrian had paused and even thought it prudent, on
the 23d of September, to retire behind the Bug; but he was to have
recrossed that river at Bresk-litowsky, and Napoleon knew no more.

At any rate, without a defection, which it was too late to foresee, and
which a precipitate return could alone prevent, he flattered himself
that Schwartzenberg, Regnier, Durutte, Dombrowski, and twenty thousand
men, divided between Minsk, Slonim, Grodno, and Wilna--in short, that
seventy thousand men; would not allow sixty thousand Russians to gain
possession of his magazines and to cut off his retreat.




CHAP. VI.


Napoleon, reduced to such hazardous conjectures, arrived quite pensive
at Vereia, when Mortier presented himself before him. But I perceive
that, hurried along, just as we then were, by the rapid succession of
violent scenes and memorable events, my attention has been diverted from
a fact worthy of notice. On the 23d of October, at half-past one in the
morning, the air was shaken by a tremendous explosion which for a moment
astonished both armies, though amid such mighty expectations scarcely
any thing now excited astonishment.

Mortier had obeyed his orders; the Kremlin was no more: barrels of
powder had been placed in all the halls of the palace of the Czars, and
one hundred and eighty-three thousand pounds under the vaults which
supported them. The marshal, with eight thousand men, had remained on
this volcano, which a Russian howitzer-shell might have exploded. Here
he covered the march of the army upon Kalouga and the retreat of our
different convoys towards Mojaisk.

Among these eight thousand men there were scarcely two thousand on whom
Mortier could rely: the others were dismounted cavalry, men of different
countries and regiments, under new officers, without similar habits,
without common recollections, in short, without any bond of union, who
formed rather a rabble than an organized body; they could scarcely fail
in a short time to disperse.

This marshal was looked upon as a devoted victim. The other chiefs, his
old companions in glory, had left him with tears in their eyes, as well
as the Emperor, who said to him, "that he relied on his good fortune;
but still in war we must sometimes make part of a fire." Mortier had
resigned himself without hesitation. His orders were to defend the
Kremlin, and on retreating to blow it up, and to burn what yet remained
of the city. It was from the castle of Krasnopachra, on the 21st of
October, that Napoleon had sent him his last orders. After executing
them, Mortier was to march upon Vereia and to form the rear-guard of the
army.

In this letter Napoleon particularly recommended to him "to put the men
still remaining in the hospitals into the carriages belonging to the
young guard, those of the dismounted cavalry, and any others that he
might find. The Romans," added he, "awarded civic crowns to those who
saved citizens: so many soldiers as he should save, so many crowns would
the Duke of Treviso deserve. He must put them on his horses and those of
any of his troops. It was thus that he, Napoleon, acted at St. Jean
d'Acre. He ought so much the more to take this measure, since, as soon
as the convoy should have rejoined the army, there would be plenty of
horses and carriages, which the consumption would have rendered useless
for its supply. The Emperor hoped that he should have to testify his
satisfaction to the Duke of Treviso for having saved him five hundred
men. He must begin with the officers and then with the subalterns, and
give the preference to Frenchmen. He would therefore assemble all the
generals and officers under his command, to make them sensible of the
importance of this measure, and how well they would deserve of the
Emperor if they saved him five hundred men."

Meanwhile, as the grand army was leaving Moscow, the Cossacks were
penetrating into the suburbs, and Mortier had retired towards the
Kremlin, as a remnant of life retires towards the heart, when death has
begun to seize the extremities. These Cossacks were the scouts to ten
thousand Russians under the command of Winzingerode.

This foreigner, inflamed with hatred of Napoleon, and animated by the
desire of retaking Moscow and naturalizing himself in Russia by this
signal exploit, pushed on to a considerable distance from his men; he
traversed, running, the Georgian colony, hastened towards the Chinese
town and the Kremlin, met with advanced posts, mistook them, fell into
an ambuscade, and finding himself a prisoner in a city which he had come
to take, he suddenly changed his part, waving his handkerchief in the
air, and declaring that he had brought a flag of truce.

He was conducted to the Duke of Treviso. There he claimed, in a high
tone, the protection of the law of nations, which, he said, was violated
in his person. Mortier replied, that "a general-in-chief, coming in this
manner, might be taken for a rash soldier, but never for a flag of
truce, and that he must immediately deliver his sword." The Russian
general, having no longer any hope of imposing upon him, complied and
admitted his imprudence.

At length, after four days' resistance, the French bid an eternal adieu
to that fatal city. They carried with them four hundred wounded, and, on
retiring, deposited, in a safe and secret place, a fire-work skilfully
prepared, which a slow fire was already consuming; its progress was
minutely calculated; so that it was known at what hour the fire would
reach the immense heap of powder buried among the foundations of these
condemned palaces.

Mortier hastened his flight; but while he was rapidly retiring, some
greedy Cossacks and squalid Muscovites, allured probably by the prospect
of pillage, approached; they listened, and emboldened by the apparent
quiet which pervaded the fortress, they ventured to penetrate into it;
they ascended, and their hands, eager after plunder, were already
stretched forth, when in a moment they were all destroyed, crushed,
hurled into the air, with the buildings which they had come to pillage,
and thirty thousand stand of arms that had been left behind there: and
then their mangled limbs, mixed with fragments of walls and shattered
weapons, blown to a great distance, descended in a horrible shower.

The earth shook under the feet of Mortier. At Feminskoe, ten leagues
off, the Emperor heard the explosion, and he himself, in that tone of
anger in which he sometimes addressed Europe, published the following
day a bulletin, dated from Borowsk, to this effect, that "the Kremlin,
the arsenal, the magazines were all destroyed; that the ancient citadel,
which dated from the origin of the monarchy, and the first palace of the
Czars, no longer existed; that Moscow was now but a heap of ruins, a
filthy and unwholesome sink, without importance, either political or
military. He had abandoned it to Russian beggars and plunderers to march
against Kutusoff, to throw himself on the left wing of that general, to
drive him back, and then to proceed quietly to the banks of the Duena,
where he should take up his winter-quarters." Then, apprehensive lest he
should appear to be retreating, he added, that "there he should be
within eighty leagues of Wilna and Petersburg, a double advantage; that
is to say, twenty marches nearer to his resources and his object." By
this remark he hoped to give to his retreat the air of an offensive
march.

It was on this occasion that he declared, that "he had refused to give
orders for the destruction of the whole country which he was quitting;
he felt a repugnance to aggravate the miseries of its inhabitants. To
punish the Russian incendiary and a hundred wretches who make war like
Tartars, he would not ruin nine thousand proprietors, and leave two
hundred thousand serfs, innocent of all these barbarities, absolutely
destitute of resources."

He had not then been soured by misfortune; but in three days every thing
had changed. After coming in collision with Kutusoff, he retreated
through this same town of Borowsk, and no sooner had he passed through
it than it ceased to exist. It was thus that in future all was destined
to be burned behind him. While conquering, he had preserved: when
retiring, he resolved to destroy: either from necessity, to ruin the
enemy and to retard his march, every thing being imperative in war; or
by way of reprisal, the dreadful consequence of wars of invasion, which
in the first place authorize every means of defence, while these
afterwards operate as motives to those of attack.

It must be admitted, however, that the aggression in this terrible
species of warfare was not on the side of Napoleon. On the 19th of
October, Berthier had written to Kutusoff, proposing "to regulate
hostilities in such a manner that they might not inflict on the
Muscovite empire more evils than were inseparable from a state of war;
the devastation of Russia being as detrimental to that empire as it was
painful to Napoleon." But Kutusoff replied, that "it was not in his
power to restrain the Russian patriotism," which amounted to an approval
of the Tartar war made upon us by his militia, and authorized us in some
measure to repay them in their own coin.

The like flames consumed Vereia, where Mortier rejoined the Emperor,
bringing to him Winzingerode. At sight of that German general, all the
secret resentments of Napoleon took fire; his dejection gave place to
anger, and he discharged all the spleen that oppressed him upon his
enemy. "Who are you?" he exclaimed, crossing his arms with violence as
if to grasp and to restrain himself, "a man without country! You have
always been my personal enemy. When I was at war with the Austrians, I
found you in their ranks. Austria is become my ally, and you have
entered into the Russian service. You have been one of the warmest
instigators of the present war. Nevertheless you are a native of the
states of the Confederation of the Rhine; you are my subject. You are
not an ordinary enemy, you are a rebel; I have a right to bring you to
trial! _Gendarmes d'elite_, seize this man!" The _gendarmes_ remained
motionless, like men accustomed to see these violent scenes terminate
without effect, and sure of obeying best by disobeying.

The Emperor resumed: "Do you see, sir, this devastated country, these
villages in flames? To whom are these disasters to be charged? to fifty
adventurers like yourself, paid by England, who has thrown them upon the
continent; but the weight of this war will ultimately fall on those who
have excited it. In six months I shall be at Petersburg, and I will call
them to account for all this swaggering."

Then addressing the aide-de-camp of Winzingerode, who was a prisoner
like himself, "As for you, Count Narischkin," said he, "I have nothing
to upbraid you with; you are a Russian, you are doing your duty; but how
could a man of one of the first families in Russia become the
aide-de-camp of a foreign mercenary? Be the aide-de-camp of a Russian
general; that employment will be far more honourable."

Till then General Winzingerode had not had an opportunity to answer this
violent language, except by his attitude: it was calm as his reply. "The
Emperor Alexander," he said, "was his benefactor and that of his family:
all that he possessed he owed to him; gratitude had made him his
subject; he was at the post which his benefactor had allotted to him,
and consequently he was only doing his duty."

Napoleon added some threats, but in a less violent strain, and he
confined himself to words, either because he had vented all his wrath in
the first explosion, or because he merely designed to frighten the
Germans who might be tempted to abandon him. Such at least was the
interpretation which those about him put upon his violence. It was
disapproved; no account was taken of it, and each was eager to accost
the captive general, to tranquillize and to console him. These
attentions were continued till the army reached Lithuania, where the
Cossacks retook Winzingerode and his aide-de-camp. The Emperor had
affected to treat this young Russian nobleman with kindness, at the same
time that he stormed so loudly against his general--a proof that there
was calculation even in his wrath.




CHAP. VII.


On the 28th of October we again beheld Mojaisk. That town was still full
of wounded; some were carried away and the rest collected together and
left, as at Moscow, to the generosity of the Russians. Napoleon had
proceeded but a few wersts from that place, when the winter began. Thus,
after an obstinate combat, and ten days' marching and countermarching,
the army, which had brought from Moscow only fifteen rations of flour
per man, had advanced but three days' march in its retreat. It was in
want of provisions and overtaken by the winter.

Some men had already sunk under these hardships. In the first days of
the retreat, on the 26th of October, carriages, laden with provisions,
which the horses could no longer draw, were burned. The order for
setting fire to all behind the army then followed; in obedience to it,
powder-waggons, the horses of which were already worn out, were blown up
together with the houses. But at length, as the enemy had not again
shown himself, we seemed to be but once more setting out on a toilsome
journey; and Napoleon, on again seeing the well-known road, was
recovering his confidence, when, towards evening, a Russian chasseur,
who had been made prisoner, was sent to him by Davoust.

At first he questioned him carelessly; but as chance would have it, this
Russian had some knowledge of roads, names, and distances. He answered,
that "the whole Russian army was marching by Medyn upon Wiazma." The
Emperor then became attentive. Did Kutusoff mean to forestall him there,
as at Malo-Yaroslawetz, to cut off his retreat upon Smolensk, as he had
done that upon Kalouga, and to coop him up in this desert without
provisions, without shelter, and in the midst of a general insurrection?
His first impulse, however, inclined him to reject this notion; for,
whether owing to pride or experience, he was accustomed not to give his
adversaries credit for that ability which he should have displayed in
their place.

In this instance, however, he had another motive. His security was but
affected: for it was evident that the Russian army was taking the Medyn
road, the very one which Davoust had recommended for the French army:
and Davoust, either from vanity or inadvertence, had not confided this
alarming intelligence to his dispatch alone. Napoleon feared its effects
on his troops, and therefore affected to disbelieve and to despise it;
but at the same time he gave orders that his guard should march next day
in all haste, and so long as it should be light, as far as Gjatz. Here
he proposed to afford rest and provisions to this flower of his army, to
ascertain, so much nearer, the direction of Kutusoff's march, and to be
beforehand with him at that point.

But he had not consulted the season, which seemed to avenge the slight.
Winter was so near at hand, that a blast of a few minutes was sufficient
to bring it on, sharp, biting, intense. We were immediately sensible
that it was indigenous to this country, and that we were strangers in
it. Every thing was altered: roads, faces, courage: the army became
sullen, the march toilsome, and consternation began.

Some leagues from Mojaisk, we had to cross the Kologa. It was but a
large rivulet; two trees, the same number of props, and a few planks
were sufficient to ensure the passage: but such was the confusion and
inattention, that the Emperor was detained there. Several pieces of
cannon, which it was attempted to get across by fording, were lost. It
seemed as if each _corps d'armee_ was marching separately as if there
was no staff, no general order, no common tie, nothing that bound these
corps together. In reality the elevation of each of their chiefs
rendered them too independent of one another. The Emperor himself had
become so exceedingly great, that he was at an immeasurable distance
from the details of his army; and Berthier, holding an intermediate
place between him and officers, who were all kings, princes, or
marshals, was obliged to act with a great deal of caution. He was
besides wholly incompetent to the situation.

The Emperor, stopped by the trifling obstacle of a broken bridge,
confined himself to a gesture expressive of dissatisfaction and
contempt; to which Berthier replied only by a look of resignation. On
this particular point he had received no orders from the Emperor: he
therefore conceived that he was not to blame; for Berthier was a
faithful echo, a mirror, and nothing more. Always ready, clear and
distinct, he reflected, he repeated the Emperor, but added nothing, and
what Napoleon forgot was forgotten without retrieve.

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