Book: History of the Expedition to Russia

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




A wounded officer, unknown to these Germans, and who was there by mere
chance, called out to them with an indignant voice, and immediately
assumed their command. The men obeyed him as they would their own
leader. In this case of pressing danger the differences of convention
disappeared. The man really superior having shown himself, acted as a
rallying point to the crowd, who grouped themselves around him, while
the general-in-chief remained mute and confounded, receiving with
docility the impulse the other had given, and acknowledging his
superiority, which, after the danger was over, he disputed, but of which
he did not, as too often happens, seek to revenge himself.

This wounded officer was Excelmans! In this action he was every thing,
general, officer, soldier, even an artilleryman, for he actually laid
hold of a cannon that had been abandoned, loaded and pointed it, and
made it once more be of use against our enemies. As to the commander of
the Westphalians, after this campaign, his premature and melancholy end
makes us presume that excessive fatigue and the consequences of some
severe wounds had already affected him mortally.

On seeing this leading column marching in such good order, the enemy
confined itself to attacking it with their bullets, which it despised,
and soon left behind it. When it came to the turn of the grenadiers of
the old guard to pass through this fire, they closed their ranks around
Napoleon like a moveable fortress, proud of having to protect him. Their
band of music expressed this pride. When the danger was greatest, they
played the well-known air, "_Ou peut-on etre mieux qu'au sein de sa
famille!_" (Where can we be happier than in the bosom of our family!) But
the Emperor, whom nothing escaped, stopped them with an exclamation,
"Rather play, _Veillons au salut de l'Empire_!" (Let us watch for the
safety of the empire!) words much better suited to his pre-occupation,
and to the general situation.

At the same time, the enemy's fire becoming troublesome, he gave orders
to silence it, and in two hours after he reached Krasnoe. The sight of
Sebastiani, and of the first grenadiers who preceded him, had been
sufficient to drive away the enemy's infantry. Napoleon entered in a
state of great anxiety, from not knowing what corps had been attacking
him, and his cavalry being too weak to enable them to get him
information, out of reach of the high road. He left Mortier and the
young guard a league behind him, in this way stretching out from too
great a distance a hand too feeble to assist his army, and determined to
wait for it.

The passage of his column had not been sanguinary, but it could not
conquer the ground as it did the enemy; the road was hilly; at every
eminence cannon were obliged to be left behind without being spiked, and
baggage, which was plundered before it was abandoned. The Russians from
their heights saw the whole interior of the army, its weaknesses, its
deformities, its most shameful parts: in short, all that is generally
concealed with the greatest care.

Notwithstanding, it appeared as if Miloradowitch, from his elevated
position, was satisfied with merely insulting the passage of the
Emperor, and of that old guard which had been so long the terror of
Europe. He did not dare to gather up its fragments until it had passed
on; but then he became bold, concentrated his forces, and descending
from the heights, took up a strong position with twenty thousand men,
quite across the high road; by this movement he separated Eugene,
Davoust, and Ney from the Emperor, and closed the road to Europe against
these three leaders.




CHAP. IV.


While he was making these preparations, Eugene was using all his efforts
at Smolensk to collect his scattered troops; with great difficulty he
tore them from the plunder of the magazines, and he did not succeed in
rallying eight thousand men until late on the 15th of November. He was
obliged to promise them supplies of provisions, and to show them the
road to Lithuania, in order to induce them to renew their march. Night
compelled him to halt at three leagues distance from Smolensk; the half
of his soldiers had already left their ranks. Next morning he continued
his march, with all that the cold of the night and of death had not
fastened round their _bivouacs_.

The noise of the cannon which they had heard the day before had ceased;
the royal column was advancing with difficulty, adding its own fragments
to those which it encountered. At its head, the viceroy and the chief of
his staff, buried in their own melancholy reflections, gave the reins to
their horses. Insensibly they left their troop behind them, without
being sensible of it; for the road was strewed with stragglers and men
marching at their pleasure, the idea of keeping whom in order had been
abandoned.

In this way they advanced to within two leagues of Krasnoe, but then a
singular movement which was passing before them attracted their absent
looks. Several of the disbanded soldiers had suddenly halted; those who
followed as they came up, formed a group with them; others who had
advanced farther fell back upon the first; they crowded together; a mass
was soon formed. The viceroy surprised, then looked about him; he
perceived that he had got the start of the main body of his army by an
hour's march: that he had about him only fifteen hundred men of all
ranks, of all nations, without organization, without leaders, without
order, without arms ready or fit for an engagement, and that he was
summoned to surrender.

This summons was answered by a general cry of indignation! But the
Russian flag of truce, who presented himself singly, insisted: "Napoleon
and his guard," said he to them, "have been beaten; you are surrounded
by twenty thousand Russians: you have no means of safety but in
accepting honourable conditions, and these Miloradowitch proposes to
you."

At these words, Guyon, one of the generals whose soldiers were either
all dead or dispersed, rushed from the crowd, and with a loud voice
called out, "Return immediately to whence you came, and tell him who
sent you, that if he has twenty thousand men, we have eighty thousand!"
The Russian, confounded, immediately retired.

All this happened in the twinkling of an eye; in a moment after the
hills on the left of the road were spouting out lightning and whirlwinds
of smoke; showers of shells and grape-shot swept the high road, and
threatening advancing columns showed their bayonets.

The viceroy hesitated for a moment; it grieved him to leave that
unfortunate troop, but at last, leaving his chief of the staff with
them, he returned back to his divisions, in order to bring them forward
to the combat, to make them get beyond the obstacle before it became
insurmountable, or to perish; for with the pride derived from a crown
and so many victories, it was not to be expected that he could ever
admit the thought of surrender.

Meanwhile, Guilleminot summoned about him the officers who, in this
crowd, had mingled with the soldiers. Several generals, colonels, and a
great number of officers immediately started forth and surrounded him;
they concerted together, and accepting him for their leader, they
distributed into platoons all the men who had hitherto formed but one
mass, and whom in that state they had found it impossible to excite.

This organization was made under a sharp fire. Several superior officers
went and placed themselves proudly in the ranks, and became once more
common soldiers. From a different species of pride, some marines of the
guard insisted on being commanded by one of their own officers, while
each of the other platoons was commanded by a general. Hitherto the
Emperor himself had been their colonel; now they were on the point of
perishing they maintained their privilege, which nothing could make them
forget, and which was respected accordingly.

These brave men, in this order, proceeded on their march to Krasnoe: and
they had already got beyond the batteries of Miloradowitch, when the
latter, rushing with his columns upon their flanks, hemmed them in so
closely, as to compel them to turn about, and seek a position in which
they could defend themselves. To the eternal glory of these warriors it
should be told, that these fifteen hundred French and Italians, one to
ten, with nothing in their favour but a determined countenance and very
few fire-arms in a state fit for use, kept their enemies at a respectful
distance upwards of an hour.

But as there was still no appearance of the viceroy and the rest of his
divisions, a longer resistance was evidently impossible. They were again
and again summoned to lay down their arms. During these short pauses
they heard the cannon rolling at a distance in their front and in their
rear. Thus, therefore, "the whole army was attacked at once, and from
Smolensk to Krasnoe it was but one engagement! If we wanted assistance,
there could be none expected by waiting for it; we must go and look for
it; but on which side? At Krasnoe it was impossible; we were too far
from it; there was every reason to believe that our troops were beaten
there. It would besides become matter of necessity for us to retreat;
and we were too near the Russians under Miloradowitch, who were calling
to us from their ranks to lay down our arms, to venture to turn our
backs upon them. It would therefore be a much better plan, as our faces
were now turned towards Smolensk, and as Prince Eugene was on that side,
to form ourselves into one compact mass, keep all its movements well
connected, and rushing headlong, to re-enter Russia by cutting our way
through these Russians, and rejoin the viceroy; then to return together,
to overthrow Miloradowitch, and at last reach Krasnoe."

To this proposition of their leader, there was a loud and unanimous cry
of assent. Instantly the column formed into a mass, and rushed into the
midst of ten thousand hostile muskets and cannon. The Russians, at first
seized with astonishment, opened their ranks and allowed this handful of
warriors, almost disarmed, to advance into the middle of them. Then,
when they comprehended their purpose, either from pity or admiration,
the enemy's battalions, which lined both sides of the road, called out
to our men to halt; they entreated and conjured them to surrender; but
the only answer they received was a more determined march, a stern
silence, and the point of the bayonet. The whole of the enemy's fire was
then poured upon them at once, at the distance of a few yards, and the
half of this heroic column was stretched wounded or lifeless on the
ground.

The remainder proceeded without a single man quitting the body of his
troop, which no Russian was bold enough to venture near. Few of these
unfortunate men again saw the viceroy and their advancing divisions.
Then only they separated; they ran and threw themselves into these
feeble ranks, which were opened to receive and protect them.

For more than an hour the Russian cannon had been thinning them. While
one half of their forces had pursued Guilleminot and compelled him to
retreat, Miloradowitch, with the other half, had stopped Prince Eugene.
His right rested on a wood which was protected by heights entirely
covered with cannon; his left touched the great road, but more in the
rear. This disposition dictated that of Eugene. The royal column, by
degrees, as it came up, deployed on the right of the road, its right
more forward than its left. The viceroy thus placed obliquely between
him and the enemy the great road, the possession of which was the
subject of contest. Each of the two armies occupied it by its left.

The Russians, placed in a position so offensive, kept entirely on the
defensive; their bullets alone attacked Eugene. A cannonade was kept up
on both sides, on theirs most destructive, on ours almost totally
ineffective. Tired out with this firing, Eugene formed his resolution;
he called the 14th French division, drew it up on the left of the great
road, pointed out to it the woody height on which the enemy rested, and
which formed his principal strength; _that_ was the decisive point, the
centre of the action, and to make the rest fall, _that_ must be carried.
He did not expect it would; but that effort would draw the attention and
the strength of the enemy on that side, the right of the great road
would remain free, and he would endeavour to take proper advantage of
it.

Three hundred soldiers, formed into three troops, were all that could be
found willing to mount to this assault. These devoted men advanced
resolutely against hostile thousands in a formidable position. A battery
of the Italian guard advanced to protect them, but the Russian batteries
immediately demolished it, and their cavalry took possession of it.

In spite of the grape-shot which was mowing them rapidly down, the three
hundred French kept moving on, and they had actually reached the enemy's
position, when, suddenly from two sides of the wood two masses of
cavalry rushed forth, bore down upon, overwhelmed and massacred them.
Not one escaped; and with them perished all remains of discipline and
courage in their division.

It was then that General Guilleminot again made his appearance. That in
a position so critical, Prince Eugene, with four thousand enfeebled
troops, the remnant of forty-two thousand and upwards, should not have
despaired, that he should still have exhibited a bold countenance, may
be conceived, from the known character of that commander; but that the
sight of our disaster and the ardour of victory should not have urged
the Russians to more than indecisive efforts, and that they should have
allowed the night to put an end to the battle, is with us, to this day,
matter of complete astonishment. Victory was so new to them, that even
when they held it in their hands, they knew not how to profit by it;
they delayed its completion until the next day.

The viceroy saw that the greater part of the Russians, attracted by his
demonstrations, had collected on the left of the road, and he only
waited until night, the sure ally of the weakest, had chained all their
movements. Then it was, that leaving his fires burning on that side, to
deceive the enemy, he quitted it, and marching entirely across the
fields, he turned, and silently got beyond the left of Miloradowitch's
position, while that general, too certain of his victory, was dreaming
of the glory of receiving, next morning, the sword of the son of
Napoleon.

In the midst of this perilous march, there was an awful moment. At the
most critical instant, when these soldiers, the survivors of so many
battles, were stealing along the side of the Russian army, holding their
breath and the noise of their steps; when their all depended on a look
or a cry of alarm; the moon all at once coming out of a thick cloud
appeared to light their movements. At the same moment a Russian sentinel
called out to them to halt, and demanded who they were? They gave
themselves up for lost! but Klisky, a Pole, ran up to this Russian, and
speaking to him in his own language, said to him with the greatest
composure, in a low tone of voice, "Be silent, fellow! don't you see
that we belong to the corps of Ouwarof, and that we are going on a
secret expedition?" The Russian, outwitted, held his tongue.

But the Cossacks were galloping up every moment to the flanks of the
column, as if to reconnoitre it, and then returned to the body of their
troop. Their squadrons advanced several times as if they were about to
charge; but they did no more, either from doubt as to what they saw, for
they were still deceived, or from prudence, as it frequently halted, and
presented a determined front to them.

At last, after two hours most anxious march, they again reached the high
road, and the viceroy was actually in Krasnoe on the 17th of November,
when Miloradowitch, descending from his heights in order to seize him,
found the field of battle occupied only by a few stragglers, whom no
effort could induce the night before to quit their fires.




CHAP. V.


The Emperor on his side had waited for the viceroy during the whole of
the preceding day. The noise of his engagement had irritated him. An
effort to break through the enemy, in order to join him, had been
ineffectually attempted; and when night came on without his making his
appearance, the uneasiness of his adopted father was at the height.
"Eugene and the army of Italy, and this long day of baffled expectation,
had they then terminated together?" Only one hope remained to Napoleon;
and that was, that the viceroy, driven back towards Smolensk, had there
joined Davoust and Ney, and that the following day they would, with
united forces, attempt a decisive effort.

In his anxiety, the Emperor assembled the marshals who remained with
him. These were Berthier, Bessieres, Mortier, and Lefebvre; these were
saved; they had cleared the obstacle; they had only to continue their
retreat through Lithuania, which was open to them; but would they
abandon their companions in the midst of the Russian army? No,
certainly; and they determined once more to enter Russia, either to
deliver, or to perish with them.

When this resolution was taken, Napoleon coolly prepared the
dispositions to carry it into effect. He was not at all shaken by the
great movements which the enemy were evidently making around him. He saw
that Kutusoff was advancing in order to surround and take him prisoner
in Krasnoe. The very night before, he had learned that Ojarowski, with a
vanguard of Russian infantry, had got beyond him, and taken a position
at Maliewo, in a village in the rear of his left. Irritated, instead of
depressed, by misfortune, he called his aide-de-camp, Rapp, and
exclaimed, "that he must set out immediately, and proceed during the
night and the darkness to attack that body of infantry with the bayonet;
that this was the first time of its exhibiting so much audacity, and
that he was determined to make it repent it, in such a way, that it
should never again dare to approach so near to his head-quarters." Then
instantly recalling him, he continued, "But, no! let Roguet and his
division go alone! As for thee, remain where thou art, I don't wish thee
to be killed here, I shall have occasion for thee at Dantzic."

Rapp, while he was carrying this order to Roguet, could not help feeling
astonished, that his leader, surrounded by eighty thousand enemies, whom
he was going to attack next day with nine thousand, should have so
little doubt about his safety, as to be thinking of what he should have
to do at Dantzic, a city from which he was separated by the winter, two
other hostile armies, famine, and a hundred and eighty leagues.

The nocturnal attack on Chirkowa and Maliewo was successful. Roguet
formed his idea of the enemy's position by the direction of their fires;
they occupied two villages, connected by a causeway, which was defended
by a ravine. He disposed his troop into three columns of attack; those
on the right and left were to advance silently, as close as possible to
the enemy; then at the signal to charge, which he himself would give
them from the centre, they were to rush into the midst of the enemy
without firing a shot, and making use only of their bayonets.

Immediately the two wings of the young guard commenced the action. While
the Russians, taken by surprise, and not knowing on which side to defend
themselves, were wavering from their right to their left, Roguet, with
his column, rushed suddenly upon their centre and into the midst of
their camp, into which he entered pell-mell with them. Thus divided and
thrown into confusion, they had barely time to throw the best part of
their great and small arms into a neighbouring lake, and to set fire to
their tents, the flames arising from which, instead of saving them, only
gave light to their destruction.

This check stopped the movement of the Russian army for four-and-twenty
hours, put it in the Emperor's power to remain at Krasnoe, and enabled
Eugene to rejoin him during the following night. He was received by
Napoleon with the greatest joy; but the Emperor's uneasiness respecting
Davoust and Ney became shortly after proportionably greater.

Around us the camp of the Russians presented a spectacle similar to what
it had done at Vinkowo, Malo-Yaroslawetz, and Wiazma. Every evening,
close to the general's tent, the relics of the Russian saints,
surrounded by an immense number of wax tapers, were exposed to the
adoration of the soldiers. While each of these was, according to custom,
giving proofs of his devotion by an endless repetition of crossings and
genuflections, the priests were addressing them with fanatical
exhortations, which would appear barbarous and absurd to every civilized
nation.

In spite, however, of the great power of such means, of the number of
the Russians, and of our weakness, Kutusoff, who was only at two
leagues' distance from Miloradowitch, while the latter was beating
Prince Eugene, remained immoveable. During the following night,
Beningsen, urged on by the ardent Wilson, in vain attempted to animate
the old Russian. Elevating the faults of his age into virtues, he
applied the names of wisdom, humanity, and prudence, to his dilatoriness
and strange circumspection; he was resolved to finish as he had begun.
For if we may be allowed to compare small things with great, his renown
had been established on a principle directly contrary to that of
Napoleon, fortune having made the one, and the other having created his
fortune.

He made a boast of "advancing only by short marches; of allowing his
soldiers to rest every third day; he would blush, and halt immediately,
if they wanted bread or spirits for a single moment." Then, with great
self-gratulation, he pretended that "all the way from Wiazma, he had
been escorting the French army as his prisoners; chastising them
whenever they wished to halt, or strike out of the high road; that it
was useless to run any risks with captives; that the Cossacks, a
vanguard, and an army of artillery, were quite sufficient to finish
them, and make them pass successively under the yoke; and that in this
plan, he was admirably seconded by Napoleon himself. Why should he seek
to _purchase_ of Fortune what she was so generously giving him? Was not
the term of Napoleon's destiny already irrevocably marked? it was in the
marshes of the Berezina that this meteor would be extinguished, this
colossus overthrown, in the midst of Wittgenstein, Tchitchakof, and
himself, and in the presence of the assembled Russian armies. As for
himself, he would have the glory of delivering him up to them,
enfeebled, disarmed, and dying; and to him that glory was sufficient."

To this discourse the English officer, still more active and eager,
replied only by entreating the field-marshal "to leave his head-quarters
only for a few moments, and advance upon the heights; there he would see
that the last moment of Napoleon was already come. Would he allow him
even to get beyond the frontiers of Russia proper, which loudly called
for the sacrifice of this great victim? Nothing remained but to strike;
let him only give the order, one charge would be sufficient, and in two
hours the face of Europe would be entirely changed!"

Then, gradually getting warmer at the coolness with which Kutusoff
listened to him, Wilson, for the third time, threatened him with the
general indignation. "Already, in his army, at the sight of the
straggling, mutilated, and dying column, which was about to escape from
him, he might hear the Cossacks exclaiming, what a shame it was to allow
these skeletons to escape in this manner out of their tomb!" But
Kutusoff, whom old age, that misfortune without hope, rendered
indifferent, became angry at the attempts made to rouse him, and by a
short and violent answer, shut the indignant Englishman's mouth.

It is asserted that the report of a spy had represented to him Krasnoe
as filled with an enormous mass of the imperial guard, and that the old
marshal was afraid of compromising his reputation by attacking it. But
the sight of our distress emboldened Beningsen; this chief of the staff
prevailed upon Strogonof, Gallitzin, and Miloradowitch, with a force of
more than fifty thousand Russians, and one hundred pieces of cannon, to
venture to attack at daylight, in spite of Kutusoff, fourteen thousand
famished, enfeebled, and half-frozen French and Italians.

This was a danger, the imminence of which Napoleon fully comprehended.
He might escape from it; daylight had not yet appeared. He was at
liberty to avoid this fatal engagement; to gain Orcha and Borizof by
rapid marches along with Eugene and his guard; there he could rally his
forces with thirty thousand French under Victor and Oudinot, with
Dombrowski, with Regnier, with Schwartzenberg, and with all his depots,
and be might again, the following year, make his appearance as
formidable as ever.

On the 17th, before daylight, he issued his orders, armed himself, and
going out on foot, at the head of his old guard, began his march. But it
was not towards Poland, his ally, that it was directed, nor towards
France, where he would be still received as the head of a rising
dynasty, and the Emperor of the West. His words on taking up his sword
on this occasion, were "I have sufficiently acted the emperor; it is
time that I should become the general." He turned back into the midst of
eighty thousand enemies, plunged into the thickest of them, in order to
draw all their efforts against himself, to make a diversion in favour of
Davoust and Ney, and to tear them from a country, the gates of which had
been closed upon them.

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