Book: History of the Expedition to Russia

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




Farther off, we perceived the rear of a long column, which was moving
off towards Borizof without ever looking behind it; one regiment of
infantry, however, and twelve cannon remained, but without taking up any
position; we also saw a horde of Cossacks wandering about the skirts of
the wood: they formed the rear-guard of Tchaplitz's division, six
thousand strong, which was thus retiring, as if for the purpose of
delivering up the passage to us.

The French, at first could hardly venture to believe their eyes. At
last, transported with joy, they clapped their hands, and uttered loud
shouts. Rapp and Oudinot rushed precipitately into the house where the
Emperor was. "Sire," they said to him, "the enemy has just raised his
camp, and quitted his position!"--"It is not possible!" he replied; but
Ney and Murat just then entered and confirmed this report. Napoleon
immediately darted out; he looked, and could just see the last files of
Tchaplitz's column getting farther off and disappearing in the woods.
Transported with joy, he exclaimed, "I have outwitted the admiral!"

During this first movement, two of the enemy's pieces re-appeared, and
fired. An order was given to remove them by a discharge of our
artillery.

One salvo was enough; it was an act of imprudence which was not
repeated, for fear of its recalling Tchaplitz. The bridge was as yet
scarcely begun; it was eight o'clock, and the first tressels were only
then fixing.

The Emperor, however, impatient to get possession of the opposite bank,
pointed it out to the bravest. Jacqueminot, aide-de-camp to the Duke of
Reggio, and the Lithuanian count Predziecski, were the first who threw
themselves into the river, and in spite of the pieces of ice, which cut
and bled the chests and sides of their horses, succeeded in reaching the
other side. Sourd, chief of the squadron, and fifty chasseurs of the
7th, each carrying a voltigeur _en croupe_, followed them, as well as
two frail rafts which transported four hundred men in twenty trips. The
Emperor having expressed a wish to have a prisoner to interrogate,
Jacqueminot, who overheard him, had scarcely crossed the river, when he
saw one of Tchaplitz's soldiers; he rushed after, attacked, and disarmed
him; then seizing and placing him on the bow of his saddle, he brought
him through the river and the ice to Napoleon.

About one o'clock the bank was entirely cleared of the Cossacks, and the
bridge for the infantry finished. The division Legrand crossed it
rapidly with its cannon, the men shouting "Vive l'Empereur!" in the
presence of their sovereign, who was himself actively pressing the
passage of the artillery, and encouraged his brave soldiers by his voice
and example.

He exclaimed, when he saw them fairly in possession of the opposite
bank, "Behold my star again appear!" for he was a believer in fatality,
like all conquerors, those men, who, having the largest accounts with
Fortune, are fully aware how much they are indebted to her, and who,
moreover, having no intermediate power between themselves and heaven,
feel themselves more immediately under its protection.




CHAP. VI.


At that moment, a Lithuanian nobleman, disguised as a peasant, arrived
from Wilna with the news of Schwartzenberg's victory over Sacken.
Napoleon appeared pleased in proclaiming it aloud, with the addition,
that "Schwartzenberg had immediately returned upon the heels of
Tchitchakof, and that he was coming to our assistance." A conjecture, to
which the disappearance of Tchaplitz gave considerable probability.

Meantime, as the first bridge which was just finished had only been made
for the infantry, a second was begun immediately after, a hundred
fathoms higher up, for the artillery and baggage, which was not finished
until four o'clock in the afternoon. During that interval, the Duke of
Reggio, with the rest of the second corps, and Dombrowski's division,
followed General Legrand to the other side; they formed about seven
thousand men.

The marshal's first care was to secure the road to Zembin, by a
detachment which chased some Cossacks from it; to push the enemy towards
Borizof, and to keep him as far back as possible from the passage of
Studzianka.

Tchaplitz, in obedience to the admiral's orders, proceeded as far as
Stakhowa, a village close to Borizof, he then turned back, and
encountered the first troops of Oudinot commanded by Albert. Both sides
halted. The French, finding themselves rather too far off from their
main body, only wanted to gain time, and the Russian general waited for
orders.

Tchitchakof had found himself in one of those difficult situations, in
which prepossession, being compelled to fluctuate in uncertainty between
several points at once, has no sooner determined and fixed upon one
side, than it removes and gets overturned upon another.

His march from Minsk to Borizof in three columns, not only by the high
road, but by the roads of Antonopolia, Logoisk, and Zembin, showed that
his whole attention was at first directed to that part of the Berezina,
above Borizof. Feeling himself then so strong upon his left, he felt
only that his right was weakened, and in consequence, his anxiety was
entirely transferred to that side.

The error which led him into that false direction had other and stronger
foundations. Kutusoff's instructions directed his responsibility to that
point. Ertell, who commanded twelve thousand men near Bobruisk, refused
to quit his cantonments, to follow Dombrowski, and to come and defend
that part of the river. He alleged, as his justification for refusal,
the danger of a distemper among the cattle, a pretext unheard of and
improbable, but perfectly true, as Tchitchakof himself has admitted.

The admiral adds further, that information sent to him by Wittgenstein
directed his anxiety towards Lower Berezino, as well as the supposition,
natural enough, that the presence of that general on the right flank of
the grand army and above Borizof, would push Napoleon below that town.

The recollection of the passages of Charles XII. and of Davoust at
Berezino, might also be another of his motives. By taking that
direction, Napoleon would not only escape Wittgenstein, but he might
retake Minsk, and form a junction with Schwartzenberg. This last was a
serious consideration with Tchitchakof, Minsk being his conquest, and
Schwartzenberg his first adversary. Lastly, and principally, Oudinot's
demonstration near Ucholoda, and probably the report of the Jews,
determined him.

The admiral, completely deceived, had therefore resolved, on the evening
of the 25th, to descend the Berezina, at the very moment that Napoleon
had determined to re-ascend it. It might almost be said that the French
Emperor dictated the Russian general's resolution, the time for adopting
it, the precise moment, and every detail of its execution. Both started
at the same time from Borizof, Napoleon for Studzianka, Tchitchakof for
Szabaszawiczy, turning their backs to each other as if by mutual
agreement, and the admiral recalling all the troops which he had above
Borizof, with the exception of a small body of light troops, and without
even taking the precaution of breaking up the roads.

Notwithstanding, at Szabaszawiczy, he was not more than five or six
leagues from the passage which was effectuating. On the morning of the
26th he must have been informed of it. The bridge of Borizof was only
three hours' march from the point of attack. He had left fifteen
thousand men before that bridge; he might therefore have returned in
person to that point, rejoined Tchaplitz at Stakhowa, on the same day
made an attack, or at least made preparations for it, and on the
following day, the 27th, overthrown with eighteen thousand men the seven
thousand soldiers of Oudinot and Dombrowski; and finally resumed, in
front of the Emperor and of Studzianka, the position which Tchaplitz had
quitted the day before.

But great errors are seldom repaired with the same readiness with which
they are committed; either because it is in our nature to be at first
doubtful of them, and that no one is disposed to admit them until they
are completely certain; or because they confuse, and in the distrust of
our own judgment, we hesitate, and require the support of other
opinions.

Thus it was, that the admiral lost the remainder of the 26th and the
whole of the 27th in consultations, in feeling his way, and in
preparations. The presence of Napoleon and his grand army, of the
weakness of which it was impossible for him to have any idea, dazzled
him. He saw the Emperor every where; before his right, in the simulated
preparations for a passage; opposite his centre at Borizof, because in
fact the arrival of the successive portions of our army filled that
place with movements; and finally, at Studzianka before his left, where
the Emperor really was.

On the 27th, so little had he recovered from his error that he made his
chasseurs reconnoitre and attack Borizof; they crossed over upon the
beams of the burnt bridge, but were repulsed by the soldiers of
Partouneaux's division.

On the same day, while he was thus irresolute, Napoleon, with about five
thousand guards, and Ney's corps, now reduced to six hundred men,
crossed the Berezina about two o'clock in the afternoon; he posted
himself in reserve to Oudinot, and secured the outlet from the bridges
against Tchitchakof's future efforts.

He had been preceded by a crowd of baggage and stragglers. Numbers of
them continued to cross the river after him as long as daylight lasted.
The army of Victor, at the same time, succeeded the guard in its
position on the heights of Studzianka.




CHAP. VII.


Hitherto all had gone on well. But Victor, in passing through Borizof,
had left there Partouneaux with his division. That general had orders to
stop the enemy in the rear of that town, to drive before him the
numerous stragglers who had taken shelter there, and to rejoin Victor
before the close of the day. It was the first time that Partouneaux had
seen the disorder of the grand army. He was anxious, like Davoust at the
beginning of the retreat, to hide the traces of it from the Cossacks of
Kutusoff, who were at his heels. This fruitless attempt, the attacks of
Platof by the high road of Orcha, and those of Tchitchakof by the burnt
bridge of Borizof, detained him in that place until the close of the
day.

He was preparing to quit it, when an order reached him from the Emperor
himself, to remain there all night. Napoleon's idea, no doubt, was, in
that manner to direct the whole attention of the three Russian generals
upon Borizof, and that Partouneaux's keeping them back upon that point,
would allow him sufficient time to operate the passage of his whole
army.

But Wittgenstein left Platof to pursue the French army along the high
road, and directed his own march more to the right. He debouched the
same evening on the heights which border the Berezina, between Borizof
and Studzianka, intercepted the road between these two points, and
captured all that was found there. A crowd of stragglers, who were
driven back on Partouneaux, apprised him that he was separated from the
rest of the army.

Partouneaux did not hesitate: although he had no more than three cannon
with him, and three thousand five hundred soldiers, he determined to cut
his way through, made his dispositions accordingly, and began his march.
He had at first to march along a slippery road, crowded with baggage and
runaways; with a violent wind blowing directly in his face, and in a
dark and icy-cold night. To these obstacles were shortly added the fire
of several thousand enemies, who lined the heights upon his right. As
long as he was only attacked in flank, he proceeded; but shortly after,
he had to meet it in front from numberless troops well posted, whose
bullets traversed his column through and through.

This unfortunate division then got entangled in a shallow; a long file
of five or six hundred carriages embarrassed all its movements; seven
thousand terrified stragglers, howling with terror and despair, rushed
into the midst of its feeble lines. They broke through them, caused its
platoons to waver, and were every moment involving in their disorder
fresh soldiers who got disheartened. It became necessary to retreat, in
order to rally, and take a better position, but in falling back, they
encountered Platof's cavalry.

Half of our combatants had already perished, and the fifteen hundred
soldiers who remained found themselves surrounded by three armies and by
a river.

In this situation, a flag of truce came, in the name of Wittgenstein and
fifty thousand men, to order the French to surrender. Partouneaux
rejected the summons. He recalled into his ranks such of his stragglers
as yet retained their arms; he wanted to make a last effort, and clear a
sanguinary passage to the bridge of Studzianka; but these men, who were
formerly so brave, were now so degraded by their miseries, that they
would no longer make use of their arms.

At the same time, the general of his vanguard apprised him that the
bridges of Studzianka were burnt; an aide-de-camp, named Rochex, who had
just brought the report, pretended that he had seen them burning.
Partouneaux believed this false intelligence, for, in regard to
calamities, misfortune is credulous.

He concluded that he was abandoned and sacrificed; and as the night, the
incumbrances, and the necessity of facing the enemy on three sides,
separated his weak brigades, he desired each of them to be told to try
and steal off, under favour of the darkness, along the flanks of the
enemy. He himself, with one of these brigades, reduced to four hundred
men, ascended the steep and woody heights on his right, with the hope of
passing through Wittgenstein's army in the darkness, of escaping him,
and rejoining Victor; or, at all events, of getting round by the sources
of the Berezina.

But at every point where he attempted to pass, he encountered the
enemy's fires, and he turned again; he wandered about for several hours
quite at random, in plains of snow, in the midst of a violent hurricane.
At every step he saw his soldiers transfixed by the cold, emaciated with
hunger and fatigue, falling half dead into the hands of the Russian
cavalry, who pursued him without intermission.

This unfortunate general was still struggling with the heavens, with
men, and with his own despair, when he felt even the earth give way
under his feet. In fact, being deceived by the snow, he had fallen into
a lake, which was not frozen sufficiently hard to bear him, and in which
he would have been drowned. Then only he yielded and gave up his arms.

While this catastrophe was accomplishing, his other three brigades,
being more and more hemmed in upon the road, lost all power of movement.
They delayed their surrender till the next morning, first by fighting,
and then by parleying; they then all fell in their turn; a common
misfortune again united them with their general.

Of the whole division, a single battalion only escaped: it had been left
the last in Borizof. It quitted it in the midst of the Russians of
Platof and of Tchitchakof, who were effecting in that town, and at that
very moment, the junction of the armies of Moscow and of Moldavia. This
battalion, being alone and separated from its division, might have been
expected to be the first to fall, but that very circumstance saved it.
Several long trains of equipages and disbanded soldiers were flying
towards Studzianka in different directions; drawn aside by one of these
crowds, mistaking his road, and leaving on his right that which had been
taken by the army, the leader of this battalion glided to the borders of
the river, followed all its windings and turnings, and protected by the
combat of his less fortunate comrades, by the darkness, and the very
difficulties of the ground, moved off in silence, escaped from the
enemy, and brought to Victor the confirmation of Partouneaux's
surrender.

When Napoleon heard the news, he was struck with grief, and exclaimed,
"How unfortunate it was, that when all appeared to be saved, as if
miraculously, this _defection_ had happened, to spoil all!" The
expression was improper, but grief extorted it from him, either because
he anticipated that Victor, being thus weakened, would be unable to hold
out long enough next day; or because he had made it a point of honour to
have left nothing during the whole of his retreat in the hands of the
enemy, but stragglers, and no armed and organised corps. In fact, this
division was the first and the only one which laid down its arms.




CHAP. VIII.


This success encouraged Wittgenstein. At the same time, after two days
feeling his way, the report of a prisoner, and the recapture of Borizof
by Platof had opened Tchitchakof's eyes. From that moment the three
Russian armies of the north, east, and south, felt themselves united;
their commanders had mutual communications. Wittgenstein and Tchitchakof
were jealous of each other, but they detested us still more; hatred, and
not friendship, was their bond of union. These generals were therefore
prepared to attack in conjunction the bridges of Studzianka, on both
sides of the river.

This was on the 28th of November. The grand army had had two days and
two nights to effect its passage; it ought to have been too late for the
Russians. But the French were in a state of complete disorder, and
materials were deficient for two bridges. Twice during the night of the
26th, the one for the carriages had broke down, and the passage had been
retarded by it for seven hours: it broke a third time on the 27th, about
four in the afternoon. On the other hand, the stragglers, who had been
dispersed in the woods and surrounding villages, had not taken advantage
of the first night, and on the 27th, when daylight appeared, they all
presented themselves at once in order to cross the bridges.

This was particularly the case when the guard, by whose movements they
regulated themselves, began its march. Its departure was like a signal;
they rushed in from all parts, and crowded upon the bank. Instantly
there was seen a deep, broad, and confused mass of men, horses, and
chariots, besieging the narrow entrance of the bridge, and overwhelming
it. The first, pushed forward by those behind them, and driven back by
the guards and pontonniers, or stopped by the river, were crushed, trod
underfoot, or precipitated among the floating ices of the Berezina. From
this immense and horrible rabble-rout there arose at times a confused
buzzing noise, at others a loud clamour, mingled with groans and fearful
imprecations.

The efforts of Napoleon and his lieutenants to save these desperate men
by restoring order among them, were for a long time completely
fruitless. The disorder was so great, that, about two o'clock, when the
Emperor presented himself in his turn, it was necessary to employ force
to open a passage for him. A corps of grenadiers of the guard, and
Latour-Maubourg, out of pure compassion, declined clearing themselves a
way through these poor wretches.

The imperial head-quarters were established at the hamlet of Zaniwki,
which is situated in the midst of the woods, within a league of
Studzianka. Eble had just then made a survey of the baggage with which
the bank was covered; he apprised the Emperor that six days would not be
sufficient to enable so many carriages to pass over. Ney, who was
present, immediately called out, "that in that case they had better be
burnt immediately." But Berthier, instigated by the demon of courts,
opposed this; he assured the Emperor that the army was far from being
reduced to that extremity, and the Emperor was led to believe him, from
a preference for the opinion which flattered him the most, and from a
wish to spare so many men, whose misfortunes he reproached himself as
the cause of, and whose provisions and little all these carriages
contained.

In the night of the 27th the disorder ceased by the effect of an
opposite disorder. The bridges were abandoned, and the village of
Studzianka attracted all these stragglers; in an instant, it was pulled
to pieces, disappeared, and was converted into an infinite number of
bivouacs. Cold and hunger kept these wretched people fixed around them;
it was found impossible to tear them from them. The whole of that night
was again lost for their passage.

Meantime Victor, with six thousand men, was defending them against
Wittgenstein. But with the first dawn of the 28th, when they saw that
marshal preparing for a battle, when they heard the cannon of
Wittgenstein thundering over their heads, and that of Tchitchakof at the
same time on the opposite bank, they rose all at once, they descended,
precipitated themselves tumultuously, and returned to besiege the
bridges.

Their terror was not without foundation; the last day of numbers of
these unfortunate persons was come. Wittgenstein and Platof, with forty
thousand Russians of the armies of the north and east, attacked the
heights on the left bank, which Victor, with his small force, defended.
On the right bank, Tchitchakof, with his twenty-seven thousand Russians
of the army of the south, debouched from Stachowa against Oudinot, Ney,
and Dombrowski. These three could hardly reckon eight thousand men in
their ranks, which were supported by the sacred squadron, as well as by
the old and young guard, who then consisted of three thousand eight
hundred infantry and nine hundred cavalry.

The two Russian armies attempted to possess themselves at once of the
two outlets from the bridges, and of all who had been unable to push
forward beyond the marshes of Zembin. More than sixty thousand men, well
clothed, well fed, and completely armed, attacked eighteen thousand
half-naked, badly armed, dying of hunger, separated by a river,
surrounded by morasses, and additionally encumbered with more than fifty
thousand stragglers, sick or wounded, and by an enormous mass of
baggage. During the last two days, the cold and misery had been such
that the old guard had lost two-thirds, and the young guard one-half of
their effective men.

This fact, and the calamity which had fallen upon Partouneaux's
division, sufficiently explain the frightful diminution of Victor's
corps, and yet that marshal kept Wittgenstein in check during the whole
of that day, the 28th. As to Tchitchakof, he was beaten. Marshal Ney,
with his eight thousand French, Swiss, and Poles, was a match for
twenty-seven thousand Russians.

The admiral's attack was tardy and feeble. His cannon cleared the road,
but he durst not venture to follow his bullets, and penetrate by the
chasm which they made in our ranks. Opposite to his right, however, the
legion of the Vistula gave way to the attack of a strong column.
Oudinot, Albert, Dombrowski, Claparede, and Kosikowski were then
wounded; some uneasiness began to be felt. But Ney hastened forward; he
made Doumerc and his cavalry dash quite across the woods upon the flank
of that Russian column; they broke through it, took two thousand
prisoners, cut the rest to pieces, and by this vigorous charge decided
the fate of the battle, which was dragging on in uncertainty.
Tchitchakof, thus defeated, was driven back into Stachowa.

[Illustration: Passage of the Berezina]

On our side, most of the generals of the second corps were wounded; for
the less troops they had, the more they were obliged to expose their
persons. Many officers on this occasion took the muskets and the places
of their wounded men. Among the losses of the day, that of young
Noailles, Berthier's aide-de-camp, was remarkable. He was struck dead by
a ball. He was one of those meritorious but too ardent officers, who are
incessantly exposing themselves, and are considered sufficiently
rewarded by being employed.

During this combat, Napoleon, at the head of his guard, remained in
reserve at Brilowa, covering the outlet of the bridges, between the two
armies, but nearer to that of Victor. That marshal, although attacked in
a very dangerous position, and by a force quadruple his own, lost very
little ground. The right of his _corps d'armee_, mutilated by the
capture of Partouneaux's division, was protected by the river, and
supported by a battery which the Emperor had erected on the opposite
bank. His front was defended by a ravine, but his left was in the air,
without support, and in a manner lost, in the elevated plain of
Studzianka.

Wittgenstein's first attack was not made until ten o'clock in the
morning of the 28th, across the road of Borizof, and along the Berezina,
which he endeavoured to ascend as far as the passage, but the French
right wing stopped him, and kept him back for a considerable time, out
of reach of the bridges. He then deployed, and extended the engagement
with the whole front of Victor, but without effect. One of his attacking
columns attempted to cross the ravine, but it was attacked and
destroyed.

At last, about the middle of the day, the Russian discovered the point
where his superiority lay: he overwhelmed the French left wing. Every
thing would then have been lost had it not been for an effort of
Fournier, and the devotion of Latour-Maubourg. That general was passing
the bridges with his cavalry; he perceived the danger, retraced his
steps, and the enemy was again stopped by a most sanguinary charge.
Night came on before Wittgenstein's forty thousand men had made any
impression on the six thousand of the Duke of Belluno. That marshal
remained in possession of the heights of Studzianka, and still preserved
the bridges from the attacks of the Russian infantry, but he was unable
to conceal them from the artillery of their left wing.

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