Book: History of the Expedition to Russia

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After passing the Kologa, we marched on, absorbed in thought, when some
of us, raising our eyes, uttered an exclamation of horror. Each
instantly looked around him, and beheld a plain trampled, bare and
devastated, all the trees cut down within a few feet from the surface,
and farther off craggy hills, the highest of which appeared to be the
most misshapen. It had all the appearance of an extinguished and
destroyed volcano. The ground was covered all around with fragments of
helmets and cuirasses, broken drums, gun-stocks, tatters of uniforms,
and standards dyed with blood.

On this desolate spot lay thirty thousand half-devoured corses. A number
of skeletons, left on the summit of one of the hills, overlooked the
whole. It seemed as if death had here fixed his empire; it was that
terrible redoubt, the conquest and the grave of Caulaincourt. Presently
the cry, "It is the field of the great battle!" formed a long and
doleful murmur. The Emperor passed quickly. Nobody stopped. Cold,
hunger, and the enemy urged us on: we merely turned our faces as we
proceeded to take a last melancholy look at the vast grave of so many
companions in arms, uselessly sacrificed, and whom we were obliged to
leave behind.

It was here that we had inscribed with the sword and blood one of the
most memorable pages of our history. A few relics yet recorded it, and
they would soon be swept away. Some day the traveller will pass with
indifference over this plain, undistinguished from any other; but when
he shall learn that it was the theatre of the great battle, he will turn
back, long survey it with inquisitive looks, impress its minutest
features on his greedy memory, and doubtless exclaim, What men! what a
commander! what a destiny! These were the soldiers, who thirteen years
before in the south attempted a passage to the East, through Egypt, and
were dashed against its gates. They afterwards conquered Europe, and
hither they came by the north to present themselves again before that
same Asia, to be again foiled. What then urged them into this roving and
adventurous life? They were not barbarians, seeking a more genial
climate, more commodious habitations, more enchanting spectacles,
greater wealth: on the contrary, they possessed all these advantages,
and all possible pleasures; and yet they forsook them, to live without
shelter, and without food, to fall daily and in succession, either slain
or mutilated. What necessity drove them to this?--Why, what but
confidence in a leader hitherto infallible! the ambition to complete a
great work gloriously begun! the intoxication of victory, and above all,
that insatiable thirst of fame, that powerful instinct, which impels man
to seek death, in order to obtain immortality.




CHAP. VIII.


While the army was passing this fatal field in grave and silent
meditation, one of the victims of that sanguinary day was perceived, it
is said, still living, and piercing the air with his groans. It was
found by those who ran up to him that he was a French soldier. Both his
legs had been broken in the engagement; he had fallen among the dead,
where he remained unnoticed. The body of a horse, gutted by a shell, was
at first his asylum; afterwards, for fifty days, the muddy water of a
ravine, into which he had rolled, and the putrified flesh of the dead,
had served for dressing for his wounds and food for the support of his
languishing existence. Those who say that they discovered this man
affirm that they saved him.

Farther on, we again beheld the great abbey or hospital of Kolotskoi, a
sight still more hideous than that of the field of battle. At Borodino
all was death, but not without its quiet; there at least the battle was
over; at Kolotskoi it was still raging. Death here seemed to be pursuing
his victims, who had escaped from the engagement, with the utmost
malignity; he penetrated into them by all their senses at once. They
were destitute of every thing for repelling his attacks, excepting
orders, which it was impossible to execute in these deserts, and which,
moreover, issuing from too high and too distant a quarter, passed
through too many hands to be executed.

Still, in spite of famine, cold, and the most complete destitution, the
devotedness of a few surgeons and a remnant of hope, still supported a
great number of wounded in this pestiferous abode. But when they saw the
army repass, and that they were about to be left behind, the least
infirm crawled to the threshold of the door, lined the way, and extended
towards us their supplicating hands.

The Emperor had just given orders that each carriage, of whatever kind
it might be, should take up one of these unfortunate creatures, that the
weakest should be left, as at Moscow, under the protection of such of
the wounded and captive Russian officers as had been recovered by our
attentions. He halted to see this order carried into execution, and it
was at a fire kindled with his forsaken waggons that he and most of his
attendants warmed themselves. Ever since morning a multitude of
explosions proclaimed the numerous sacrifices of this kind which it
already had been found necessary to make.

During this halt, an atrocious action was witnessed. Several of the
wounded had just been placed in the suttlers' carts. These wretches,
whose vehicles were overloaded with the plunder of Moscow, murmured at
the new burden imposed upon them; but being compelled to admit it, they
held their peace. No sooner, however, had the army recommenced its
march, than they slackened their pace, dropped behind their columns, and
taking advantage of a lonely situation, they threw all the unfortunate
men committed to their care into the ditches. One only lived long enough
to be picked up by the next carriages that passed: he was a general, and
through him this atrocious procedure became known. A shudder of horror
spread throughout the column; it reached the Emperor; for the sufferings
of the army were not yet so severe and so universal as to stifle pity,
and to concentrate all his affections within the bosom of each
individual.

In the evening of this long day, as the imperial column approached
Gjatz, it was surprised to find Russians quite recently killed on the
way. It was remarked, that each of them had his head shattered in the
same manner, and that his bloody brains were scattered near him. It was
known that two thousand Russian prisoners were marching on before, and
that their guard consisted of Spaniards, Portuguese, and Poles. On this
discovery, each, according to his disposition, was indignant, approved,
or remained indifferent. Around the Emperor these various feelings were
mute. Caulaincourt broke out into the exclamation, that "it was an
atrocious cruelty. Here was a pretty specimen of the civilization which
we were introducing into Russia! What would be the effect of this
barbarity on the enemy? Were we not leaving our wounded and a multitude
of prisoners at his mercy? Did he want the means of wreaking the most
horrible retaliation?"

Napoleon preserved a gloomy silence, but on the ensuing day these
murders had ceased. These unfortunate people were then merely left to
die of hunger in the enclosures where, at night, they were confined like
cattle. This was no doubt a barbarity too; but what could we do?
Exchange them? the enemy rejected the proposal. Release them? they would
have gone and published the general distress, and, soon joined by
others, they would have returned to pursue us. In this mortal warfare,
to give them their lives would have been sacrificing our own. We were
cruel from necessity. The mischief arose from our having involved
ourselves in so dreadful an alternative.

Besides, in their march to the interior of Russia, our soldiers, who had
been made prisoners, were not more humanely treated, and there,
certainly, imperious necessity was not an excuse.

At length the troops arrived with the night at Gjatz; but this first day
of winter had been cruelly occupied. The sight of the field of battle,
and of the two forsaken hospitals, the multitude of waggons consigned to
the flames, the Russians with their brains blown out, the excessive
length of the march, the first severities of winter, all concurred to
render it horrible: the retreat became a flight; and Napoleon, compelled
to yield and run away, was a spectacle perfectly novel.

Several of our allies enjoyed it with that inward satisfaction which is
felt by inferiors, when they see their chiefs at length thwarted, and
obliged in their turn to give way. They indulged that miserable envy
that is excited by extraordinary success, which rarely occurs without
being abused, and which shocks that equality which is the first want of
man. But this malicious joy was soon extinguished and lost in the
universal distress.

The wounded pride of Napoleon justified the supposition of such
reflections. This was perceived in one of the halts of that day: there,
on the rough furrows of a frozen field, strewed with wrecks both Russian
and French, he attempted, by the energy of his words, to relieve himself
from the weight of the insupportable responsibility of so many
disasters. "He had in fact dreaded this war, and he devoted its author
to the execration of the whole world. It was ---- whom he accused of
this; it was that Russian minister, sold to the English, who had
fomented it, and the traitor had drawn into it both Alexander and
himself."

These words, uttered before two of his generals, were heard with that
silence enjoined by old respect, added to that which is due to
misfortune. But the Duke of Vicenza, perhaps too impatient, betrayed his
indignation by a gesture of anger and incredulity, and, abruptly
retiring, put an end to this painful conversation.




CHAP. IX.


From Gjatz the Emperor proceeded in two marches to Wiazma. He there
halted to wait for Prince Eugene and Davoust, and to reconnoitre the
road of Medyn and Yucknow, which runs at that place into the high road
to Smolensk. It was this cross-road which might bring the Russian army
from Malo-Yaroslawetz on his passage. But on the first of November,
after waiting thirty-six hours, Napoleon had not seen any avant-courier
of that army; he set out, wavering between the hope that Kutusoff had
fallen asleep, and the fear that the Russian had left Wiazma on his
right, and proceeded two marches farther towards Dorogobouje to cut off
his retreat. At any rate, he left Ney at Wiazma, to collect the first
and fourth corps, and to relieve, as the rear-guard, Davoust, whom he
judged to be fatigued.

He complained of the tardiness of the latter; he wrote to reproach him
with being still five marches behind him, when he ought to have been no
more than three days later; he considered the genius of that marshal as
too methodical to direct, in a suitable manner, so irregular a march.

The whole army, and the corps of Prince Eugene in particular, repeated
these complaints. They said, that "owing to his spirit of order and
obstinacy, Davoust had suffered the enemy to overtake him at the Abbey
of Kalotskoi; that he had there done ragamuffin Cossacks the honour of
retiring before them, step by step, and in square battalions, as if they
had been Mamelukes; that Platof, with his cannon, had played at a
distance on the deep masses which he had presented to him; that then
only the marshal had opposed to them merely a few slender lines, which
had speedily formed again, and some light pieces, the first fire of
which had produced the desired effect; but that these manoeuvres and
regular foraging excursions had occasioned a great loss of time, which
is always valuable in retreat, and especially amidst famine, through
which the most skilful manoeuvre was to pass with all possible
expedition."

In reply to this, Davoust urged his natural horror of every kind of
disorder, which had at first led him to attempt to introduce regularity
into this flight; he had endeavoured to cover the wrecks of it, fearing
the shame and the danger of leaving for the enemy these evidences of our
disastrous state.

He added, that, "people were not aware of all that he had had to
surmount; he had found the country completely devastated, houses
demolished, and the trees burned to their very roots; for it was not to
him who came last, that the work of general destruction had been left;
the conflagration preceded him. It appeared as if the rear-guard had
been totally forgotten! No doubt, too, people forgot the frozen road
rough with the tracks of all who had gone before him; as well as the
deep fords and broken bridges, which no one thought of repairing, as
each corps, when not engaged, cared but for itself alone."

Did they not know besides, that the whole tremendous train of
stragglers, belonging to the other corps, on horseback, on foot, and in
vehicles, aggravated these embarrassments, just as in a diseased body
all the complaints fly to and unite in the part most affected? Every day
he marched between these wretches and the Cossacks, driving forward the
one and pressed by the other.

Thus, after passing Gjatz, he had found the slough of Czarewo-Zaimcze
without a bridge, and completely encumbered with carriages. He had
dragged them out of the marsh in sight of the enemy, and so near to them
that their fires lighted his labours, and the sound of their drums
mingled with that of his voice. For the marshal and his generals could
not yet resolve to relinquish to the enemy so many trophies; nor did
they make up their minds to it, till after superfluous exertions, and in
the last extremity, which happened several times a day.

The road was in fact crossed every moment by marshy hollows. A slope,
slippery as glass with the frost, hurried the carriages into them and
there they stuck; to draw them out it was necessary to climb the
opposite ascent by an icy road, where the horses, whose shoes were worn
quite smooth, could not obtaining a footing, and where every moment they
and their drivers dropped exhausted one upon the other. The famished
soldiers immediately fell upon these luckless animals and tore them to
pieces; then at fires, kindled with the remains of their carriages, they
broiled the yet bleeding flesh and devoured it.

Meanwhile the artillerymen, a chosen corps, and their officers, all
brought up in the first school in the world, kept off these unfortunate
wretches whenever they could, and took the horses from their own chaises
and waggons, which they abandoned to save the guns. To these they
harnessed their horses, nay even themselves: the Cossacks, observing
this disaster from a distance, durst not approach; but with their light
pieces mounted on sledges they threw their balls into all this disorder,
and served to increase it.

The first corps had already lost ten thousand men: nevertheless, by dint
of efforts and sacrifices, the viceroy and the Prince of Eckmuehl were,
on the 2d of November, within two leagues of Wiazma. It is certain that
the same day they might have passed that town, joined Ney, and avoided a
disastrous engagement. It is affirmed, that such was the opinion of
Prince Eugene, but that Davoust believed his troops to be too much
fatigued, on which the viceroy, sacrificing himself to his duty, staid
to share a danger which he foresaw. Davoust's generals say, on the
contrary, that Prince Eugene, who was already encamped, could not find
in his heart to make his soldiers leave their fires and their meal,
which they had already begun, and the cooking of which always cost them
a great deal of trouble.

Be that as it may, during the deceptive tranquillity of that night, the
advanced-guard of the Russians arrived from Malo-Yaroslawetz, our
retreat from which place had put an end to theirs: it skirted along the
two French corps and that of Poniatowski, passed their bivouacs, and
disposed its columns of attack against the left flank of the road, in
the intermediate two leagues which Davoust and Eugene had left between
themselves and Wiazma.

Miloradowitch, whom we denominated the Russian Murat, commanded this
advanced-guard. He was, according to his countrymen, an indefatigable
and successful warrior, impetuous as that soldier-king, of a stature
equally remarkable, and, like him, a favourite of fortune. He was never
known to be wounded, though numbers of officers and soldiers had fallen
around him, and several horses had been killed under him. He despised
the principles of war: he even made an art of not following the rules of
that art, pretending to surprise the enemy by unexpected blows, for he
was prompt in decision; he disdained to make any preparations, leaving
places and circumstances to suggest what was proper to be done, and
guiding himself only by sudden inspirations. In other respects, a
general in the field of battle alone, he was destitute of foresight in
the management of any affairs, either public or private, a notorious
spendthrift, and, what is rare, not less upright than prodigal.

It was this general, with Platof and twenty thousand men, whom we had
now to fight.




CHAP. X.


On the 3d of November, Prince Eugene was proceeding towards Wiazma,
preceded by his equipages and his artillery, when the first light of day
shewed him at once his retreat threatened by an army on his left; behind
him his rear-guard cut off; and on his left the plain covered with
stragglers and scattered vehicles, fleeing before the lances of the
enemy. At the same time, towards Wiazma, he heard Marshal Ney, who
should have assisted him, fighting for his own preservation.

That Prince was not one of those generals, the offspring of favour, to
whom every thing is unexpected and cause of astonishment, for want of
experience. He immediately looked the evil in the face, and set about
remedying it. He halted, turned about, deployed his divisions on the
right of the high road, and checked in the plain the Russian columns,
who were striving to cut him off from that road. Their foremost troops,
overpowering the right of the Italians, had already seized one point, of
which they kept possession, when Ney despatched from Wiazma one of his
regiments, which attacked them in the rear and dislodged them.

At the same time Compans, a general of Davoust's, joined the Italian
rear-guard with his division. They cleared a way for themselves, and
while they, united with the Viceroy, were engaged, Davoust with his
column passed rapidly behind them, along the left side of the high road,
then crossing it as soon as he had got beyond them, he claimed his place
in the order of battle, took the right wing, and found himself between
Wiazma and the Russians. Prince Eugene gave up to him the ground which
he had defended, and crossed to the other side of the road. The enemy
then began to extend himself before them, and endeavoured to break
through their wings.

By the success of this first manoeuvre, the two French and Italian
corps had not conquered the right to continue their retreat, but only
the possibility of defending it. They were still thirty thousand strong;
but in the first corps, that of Davoust, there was some disorder. The
hastiness of the manoeuvre, the surprise, so much wretchedness, and,
above all, the fatal example of a multitude of dismounted cavalry,
without arms, and running to and fro bewildered with fear, threw it into
confusion.

This sight encouraged the enemy; he took it for a rout. His artillery,
superior in number, manoeuvred at a gallop: it took obliquely and in
flank our lines, which it cut down, while the French cannon, already at
Wiazma, and which had been ordered to return in haste, could with
difficulty be brought along. However, Davoust and his generals had still
their firmest troops, about them. Several of these officers, still
suffering from the wounds received at the Moskwa, one with his arm in a
sling, another with his head wrapped in cloths, were seen supporting the
best, encouraging the most irresolute, dashing at the enemy's batteries,
forcing them to retire, and even seizing three of their pieces; in
short, astonishing both the enemy and their own fugitives, and combating
a mischievous example by their noble behaviour.

Miloradowitch, perceiving that his prey was escaping, now applied for
reinforcement; and it was again Wilson, who was sure to be present
wherever he could be most injurious to France, who hastened to summon
Kutusoff. He found the old marshal unconcernedly resting himself with
his army within hearing of the action. The ardent Wilson, urgent as the
occasion, excited him in vain: he could not induce him to stir.
Transported with indignation, he called him traitor, and declared that
he would instantly despatch one of his Englishmen full speed to
Petersburg, to denounce his treason to his Emperor and his allies.

This threat had no effect on Kutusoff; he persisted in remaining
inactive; either because to the frost of age was superadded that of
winter, and that in his shattered frame his mind was depressed by the
sight of so many ruins; or that, from another effect of old age, a
person becomes prudent when he has scarcely any thing to risk, and a
temporiser when he has no more time to lose. He seemed still to be of
opinion, as at Malo-Yaroslawetz, that the Russian winter alone could
overthrow Napoleon; that this genius, the conqueror of men, was not yet
sufficiently conquered by Nature; that it was best to leave to the
climate the honour of that victory, and to the Russian atmosphere the
work of vengeance.

Miloradowitch, left to himself, then tried to break the French line of
battle; but he could not penetrate it except by his fire, which made
dreadful havoc in it. Eugene and Davoust were growing weak; and as they
heard another action in the rear of their right, they imagined that the
rest of the Russian army was approaching Wiazma by the Yuknof road, the
outlet of which Ney was defending.

It was only an advanced-guard: but they were alarmed at the noise of
this fight in the rear of their own, threatening their retreat. The
action had lasted ever since seven in the morning; night was
approaching; the baggage must by this time have got away; the French
generals therefore began to retire.

This retrograde movement increased the ardour of the enemy, and but for
a memorable effort of the 25th, 57th, and 85th regiments, and the
protection of a ravine, Davoust's corps would have been broken, turned
by its right, and destroyed. Prince Eugene, who was not so briskly
attacked, was able to effect his retreat more rapidly through Wiazma;
but the Russians followed him thither, and had penetrated into the town,
when Davoust, pursued by twenty thousand men, and overwhelmed by eighty
pieces of cannon, attempted to pass in his turn.

Morand's division first entered the town: it was marching on with
confidence, under the idea that the action was over, when the Russians,
who were concealed by the windings of the streets, suddenly fell upon
it. The surprise was complete and the confusion great: Morand
nevertheless rallied and re-encouraged his men, retrieved matters, and
fought his way through.

It was Compans who put an end to the whole. He closed the march with his
division. Finding himself too closely pressed by the bravest troops of
Miloradowitch, he turned about, dashed in person at the most eager,
overthrew them, and having thus made them fear him, he finished his
retreat without further molestation. This conflict was glorious to each,
and its result disastrous to all: it was without order and unity. There
would have been troops enough to conquer, had there not been too many
commanders. It was not till near two o'clock that the latter met to
concert their manoeuvres, and these were even then executed without
harmony.

When at length the river, the town of Wiazma, night, mutual fatigue, and
Marshal Ney had separated them from the enemy, the danger being
adjourned and the bivouacs established, the numbers were counted.
Several pieces of cannon which had been broken, the baggage, and four
thousand killed or wounded, were missing. Many of the soldiers had
dispersed. Their honour was saved, but there were immense gaps in the
ranks. It was necessary to close them up, to bring every thing within a
narrower compass, to form what remained into a more compact whole. Each
regiment scarcely composed a battalion, each battalion a platoon. The
soldiers had no longer their accustomed places, comrades, or officers.

This sad re-organization took place by the light of the conflagration of
Wiazma, and during the successive discharges of the cannon of Ney and
Miloradowitch, the thunders of which were prolonged amid the double
darkness of night and the forests. Several times the relics of these
brave troops, conceiving that they were attacked, crawled to their arms.
Next morning, when they fell into their ranks again, they were
astonished at the smallness of their number.




CHAP. XI.


The spirits of the troops were still supported by the example of their
leaders, by the hopes of finding all their wants supplied at Smolensk,
and still more by the aspect of a yet brilliant sun, of that universal
source of hope and life, which seemed to contradict and deny the
spectacles of despair and death that already encompassed us.

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