Book: History of the Expedition to Russia

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CHAP. IX.


During the whole of that day, the situation of the ninth corps was so
much more critical, as a weak and narrow bridge was its only means of
retreat; in addition to which its avenues were obstructed by the baggage
and the stragglers. By degrees, as the action got warmer, the terror of
these poor wretches increased their disorder. First of all they were
alarmed by the rumours of a serious engagement, then by seeing the
wounded returning from it, and last of all by the batteries of the
Russian left wing, some bullets from which began to fall among their
confused mass.

They had all been already crowding one upon the other, and the immense
multitude heaped upon the bank pell-mell with the horses and carriages,
there formed a most alarming incumbrance. It was about the middle of the
day that the first Russian bullets fell in the midst of this chaos; they
were the signal of universal despair.

Then it was, as in all cases of extremity, that dispositions exhibited
themselves without disguise, and actions were witnessed, most base, and
others most sublime. According to their different characters, some
furious and determined, with sword in hand, cleared for themselves a
horrible passage. Others, still more cruel, opened a way for their
carriages by driving them without mercy over the crowd of unfortunate
persons who stood in the way, whom they crushed to death. Their
detestable avarice made them sacrifice their companions in misfortune to
the preservation of their baggage. Others, seized with a disgusting
terror, wept, supplicated, and sunk under the influence of that passion,
which completed the exhaustion of their strength. Some were observed,
(and these were principally the sick and wounded,) who, renouncing life,
went aside and sat down resigned, looking with a fixed eye on the snow
which was shortly to be their tomb.

Numbers of those who started first among this crowd of desperadoes
missed the bridge, and attempted to scale it by the sides, but the
greater part were pushed into the river. There were seen women in the
midst of the ice, with their children in their arms, raising them as
they felt themselves sinking, and even when completely immerged, their
stiffened arms still held them above them.

In the midst of this horrible disorder, the artillery bridge burst and
broke down. The column, entangled in this narrow passage, in vain
attempted to retrograde. The crowds of men who came behind, unaware of
the calamity, and not hearing the cries of those before them, pushed
them on, and threw them into the gulf, into which they were precipitated
in their turn.

Every one then attempted to pass by the other bridge. A number of large
ammunition waggons, heavy carriages, and cannon crowded to it from all
parts. Directed by their drivers, and carried along rapidly over a rough
and unequal declivity, in the midst of heaps of men, they ground to
powder the poor wretches who were unlucky enough to get between them;
after which, the greater part, driving violently against each other and
getting overturned, killed in their fall those who surrounded them.
Whole rows of these desperate creatures being pushed against these
obstacles, got entangled among them, were thrown down and crushed to
pieces by masses of other unfortunates who succeeded each other
uninterruptedly.

Crowds of them were rolling in this way, one over the other, nothing was
heard but cries of rage and suffering. In this frightful medley, those
who were trod under and stifled, struggled under the feet of their
companions, whom they laid hold of with their nails and teeth, and by
whom they were repelled without mercy, as if they had been enemies.

Among them were wives and mothers, calling in vain, and in tones of
distraction, for their husbands and their children, from whom they had
been separated but a moment before, never more to be united: they
stretched out their arms and entreated to be allowed to pass in order to
rejoin them; but being carried backwards and forwards by the crowd, and
overcome by the pressure, they sunk under without being even remarked.
Amidst the tremendous noise of a furious hurricane, the firing of
cannon, the whistling of the storm and of the bullets, the explosion of
shells, vociferations, groans, and the most frightful oaths, this
infuriated and disorderly crowd heard not the complaints of the victims
whom it was swallowing up.

The more fortunate gained the bridge by scrambling over heaps of
wounded, of women and children thrown down and half suffocated, and whom
they again trod down in their attempts to reach it. When at last they
got to the narrow defile, they fancied they were safe, but the fall of a
horse, or the breaking or displacing of a plank again stopped all.

There was also, at the outlet of the bridge, on the other side, a
morass, into which many horses and carriages had sunk, a circumstance
which again embarrassed and retarded the clearance. Then it was, that in
that column of desperadoes, crowded together on that single plank of
safety, there arose an internal struggle, in which the weakest and worst
situated were thrown into the river by the strongest. The latter,
without turning their heads, and carried away by the instinct of
self-preservation, pushed on toward the goal with fury, regardless of
the imprecations of rage and despair, uttered by their companions or
their officers, whom they had thus sacrificed.

But on the other hand, how many noble instances of devotion! and why are
time and space denied me to relate them? There were seen soldiers, and
even officers, harnessing themselves to sledges, to snatch from that
fatal bank their sick or wounded comrades. Farther off, and out of reach
of the crowd, were seen soldiers motionless, watching over their dying
officers, who had entrusted themselves to their care; the latter in vain
conjured them to think of nothing but their own preservation, they
refused, and, sooner than abandon their leaders, were contented to wait
the approach of slavery or death.

Above the first passage, while the young Lauriston threw himself into
the river, in order to execute the orders of his sovereign more
promptly, a little boat, carrying a mother and her two children, was
overset and sunk under the ice; an artilleryman, who was struggling like
the others on the bridge to open a passage for himself, saw the
accident; all at once, forgetting himself, he threw himself into the
river, and by great exertion, succeeded in saving one of the three
victims. It was the youngest of the two children; the poor little thing
kept calling for its mother with cries of despair, and the brave
artilleryman was heard telling it, "not to cry; that he had not
preserved it from the water merely to desert it on the bank; that it
should want for nothing; that he would be its father, and its family."

The night of the 28th added to all these calamities. Its darkness was
insufficient to conceal its victims from the artillery of the Russians.
Amidst the snow, which covered every thing, the course of the river, the
thorough black mass of men, horses, carriages, and the noise proceeding
from them, were sufficient to enable the enemy's artillerymen, to direct
their fire.

About nine o'clock at night there was a still farther increase of
desolation, when Victor began his retreat, and his divisions came and
opened themselves a horrible breach through these unhappy wretches, whom
they had till then been protecting. A rear-guard, however, having been
left at Studzianka, the multitude, benumbed with cold, or too anxious to
preserve their baggage, refused to avail themselves of the last night
for passing to the opposite side. In vain were the carriages set fire
to, in order to tear them from them. It was only the appearance of
daylight, which brought them all at once, but too late, to the entrance
of the bridge, which they again besieged. It was half-past eight in the
morning, when Eble, seeing the Russians approaching, at last set fire to
it.

The disaster had reached its utmost bounds. A multitude of carriages,
three cannon, several thousand men and women, and some children, were
abandoned on the hostile bank. They were seen wandering in desolate
troops on the borders of the river. Some threw themselves into it in
order to swim across; others ventured themselves on the pieces of ice
which were floating along: some there were also who threw themselves
headlong into the flames of the burning bridge, which sunk under them;
burnt and frozen at one and the same time, they perished under two
opposite punishments. Shortly after, the bodies of all sorts were
perceived collecting together and the ice against the tressels of the
bridge. The rest awaited the Russians. Wittgenstein did not show himself
upon the heights until an hour after Eble's departure, and, without
having gained a victory, reaped all the fruits of one.




CHAP. X.


While this catastrophe was accomplishing, the remains of the grand army
on the opposite bank formed nothing but a shapeless mass, which
unravelled itself confusedly, as it took the road to Zembin. The whole
of this country is a high and woody plain of great extent, where the
waters, flowing in uncertainty between different inclinations of the
ground, form one vast morass. Three consecutive bridges, of three
hundred fathoms in length, are thrown over it; along these the army
passed, with a mingled feeling of astonishment, fear, and delight.

These magnificent bridges, made of resinous fir, began at the distance
of a few wersts from the passage. Tchaplitz had occupied them for
several days. An _abatis_ and heaps of bavins of combustible wood,
already dry, were laid at their entrance, as if to remind him of the use
he had to make of them. It would not have required more than the fire
from one of the Cossacks' pipes to set these bridges on fire. In that
case all our efforts and the passage of the Berezina would have been
entirely useless. Caught between the morass and the river, in a narrow
space, without provisions, without shelter, in the midst of a tremendous
hurricane, the grand army and its Emperor must have been compelled to
surrender without striking a blow.

In this desperate situation, in which all France seemed destined to be
taken prisoner in Russia, where every thing was against us and in favour
of the Russians, the latter did nothing but by halves. Kutusoff did not
reach the Dnieper, at Kopis, until the very day that Napoleon approached
the Berezina. Wittgenstein allowed himself to be kept in check during
the time that the former required for his passage. Tchitchakof was
defeated; and of eighty thousand men, Napoleon succeeded in saving sixty
thousand.

He remained till the last moment on these melancholy banks, near the
ruins of Brilowa, unsheltered, and at the head of his guards, one-third
of whom were destroyed by the storm. During the day they stood to arms,
and were drawn up in order of battle; at night, they bivouacked in a
square round their leader; there the old grenadiers incessantly kept
feeding their fires. They sat upon their knapsacks, with their elbows
planted on their knees, and their hands supporting their head;
slumbering in this manner doubled upon themselves, in order that one
limb might warm the other, and that they should feel less the emptiness
of their stomachs.

During these three days and three nights, spent in the midst of them,
Napoleon, with his looks and his thoughts wandering on three sides at
once, supported the second corps by his orders and his presence,
protected the ninth corps and the passage with his artillery, and united
his efforts with those of Eble in saving as many fragments as possible
from the wreck. He at last directed the remains to Zembin, where Prince
Eugene had preceded him.

It was remarked that he still gave orders to his marshals, who had no
soldiers to command, to take up positions on that road, as if they had
still armies at their beck. One of them made the observation to him with
some degree of asperity, and was beginning an enumeration of his losses;
but Napoleon, determined to reject all reports, lest they should
degenerate into complaints, warmly interrupted him with these words:
"why then do you wish to deprive me of my tranquillity?" and as the
other was persisting, he shut his mouth at once, by repeating, in a
reproachful manner, "I ask you, sir, why do you wish to deprive me of my
tranquillity?" An expression, which in his adversity, explained the
attitude which he imposed upon himself, and that which he exacted of
others.

Around him during these mortal days, every bivouac was marked by a heap
of dead bodies. There were collected men of all classes, of all ranks,
of all ages; ministers, generals, administrators. Among them was
remarked an elderly nobleman of the times long passed, when light and
brilliant graces held sovereign sway. This general officer of sixty was
seen sitting on the snow-covered trunk of a tree, occupying himself with
unruffled gaiety every morning with the details of his toilette; in the
midst of the hurricane, he had his hair elegantly dressed, and powdered
with the greatest care, amusing himself in this manner with all the
calamities, and with the fury of the combined elements which assailed
him.

Near him were officers of the scientific corps still finding subjects of
discussion. Imbued with the spirit of an age, which a few discoveries
have encouraged to find explanations for every thing, the latter, amidst
the acute sufferings which were inflicted upon them by the north wind,
were endeavouring to ascertain the cause of its constant direction.
According to them, since his departure for the antarctic pole, the sun,
by warming the southern hemisphere, converted all its emanations into
vapour, elevated them, and left on the surface of that zone a vacuum,
into which the vapours of our hemisphere, which were lower, on account
of being less rarefied, rushed with violence. From one to another, and
from a similar cause, the Russian pole, completely surcharged with
vapours which it had emanated, received, and cooled since the last
spring, greedily followed that direction. It discharged itself from it
by an impetuous and icy current, which swept the Russian territory quite
bare, and stiffened or destroyed every thing which it encountered in its
passage.

Several others of these officers remarked with curious attention the
regular hexagonal crystallization of each of the flakes of snow which
covered their garments.

The phenomenon of parhelias, or simultaneous appearances of several
images of the sun, reflected to their eyes by means of icicles suspended
in the atmosphere, was also the subject of their observations, and
occurred several times to divert them from their sufferings.




CHAP. XI.


On the 29th the Emperor quitted the banks of the Berezina, pushing on
before him the crowd of disbanded soldiers, and marching with the ninth
corps, which was already disorganized. The day before, the second and
the ninth corps, and Dombrowski's division presented a total of fourteen
thousand men; and now, with the exception of about six thousand, the
rest had no longer any form of division, brigade, or regiment.

Night, hunger, cold, the fall of a number of officers, the loss of the
baggage on the other side of the river, the example of so many runaways,
and the much more forbidding one of the wounded, who had been abandoned
on both sides of the river, and were left rolling in despair on the
snow, which was covered with their blood--every thing; in short, had
contributed to discourage them; they were confounded in the mass of
disbanded men who had come from Moscow.

The whole still formed sixty thousand men, but without the least order
or unity. All marched pell-mell, cavalry, infantry, artillery, French
and Germans; there was no longer either wing or centre. The artillery
and carriages drove on through this disorderly crowd, with no other
instructions than to proceed as quickly as possible.

On this narrow and hilly causeway, many were crushed to death in
crowding together through the defiles, after which there was a general
dispersion to every point where either shelter or provisions were likely
to be found. In this manner did Napoleon reach Kamen, where he slept,
along with the prisoners made on the preceding day, who were put into a
fold like sheep. These poor wretches, after devouring even the dead
bodies of their fellows, almost all perished of cold and hunger.

On the 30th he reached Pleszezenitzy. Thither the Duke of Reggio, after
being wounded, had retired the day before, with about forty officers and
soldiers. He fancied himself in safety, when all at once the Russian
partizan, Landskoy, with one hundred and fifty hussars, four hundred
Cossacks, and two cannon, penetrated, into the village, and filled all
the streets of it.

Oudinot's feeble escort was dispersed. The marshal saw himself reduced
to defend himself with only seventeen others, in a wooden house, but he
did so with such audacity and success, that the enemy was astonished,
quitted the village, and took position on a height, from which he
attacked it with his cannon. The relentless destiny of this brave
marshal so ordered it, that in this skirmish he was again wounded by a
splinter of wood.

Two Westphalian battalions, which preceded the Emperor, at last made
their appearance and disengaged him, but not till late, and not until
these Germans and the marshal's escort (who at first did not recognize
each other as friends) had taken a long and anxious survey of each
other.

On the 3d of December, Napoleon arrived in the morning at Malodeczno,
which was the last point where Tchitchakof was likely to have got the
start of him. Some provisions were found there, the forage was abundant,
the day beautiful, the sun shining, and the cold bearable. There also
the couriers, who had been so long in arrears arrived all at once. The
Poles were immediately directed forward to Warsaw through Olita, and the
dismounted cavalry by Merecz to the Niemen; the rest of the army was to
follow the high road, which they had again regained.

Up to that time, Napoleon seemed to have entertained no idea of quitting
his army. But about the middle of that day, he suddenly informed Daru
and Duroc of his determination to set off immediately for Paris.

Daru did not see the necessity of it. He objected, "that the
communication with France was again opened, and the most dangerous
crisis passed; that at every retrograde step he would now be meeting the
reinforcements sent him from Paris and from Germany." The Emperor's
reply was, "that he no longer felt himself sufficiently strong to leave
Prussia between him and France. What necessity was there for his
remaining at the head of a routed army? Murat and Eugene would be
sufficient to direct it, and Ney to cover its retreat.

"That his return to France was become indispensable, in order to secure
her tranquillity, and to summon her to arms; to take measures there for
keeping the Germans steady in their fidelity to him; and finally, to
return with new and sufficient forces to the assistance of his grand
army.

"But, in order to attain that object, it was necessary that he should
travel alone over four hundred leagues of the territories of his allies;
and to do so without danger, that his resolution should be there
unforeseen, his passage unknown, and the rumour of his disastrous
retreat still uncertain; that he should precede the news of it, and
anticipate the effect which it might produce on them, and all the
defections to which it might give rise. He had, therefore, no time to
lose, and the moment of his departure was now arrived."

He only hesitated in the choice of the leader whom he should leave in
command of the army; he wavered between Murat and Eugene. He liked the
prudence and devotedness of the latter; but Murat had greater celebrity,
which would give him more weight. Eugene would remain with that monarch;
his youth and his inferior rank would be a security for his obedience,
and his character for his zeal. He would set an example of it to the
other marshals.

Finally, Berthier, the channel, to which they had been so long
accustomed, of all the imperial orders and rewards, would remain with
them; there would consequently be no change in the form or the
organization of the army; and this arrangement, at the same time that it
would be a proof of the certainty of his speedy return, would serve both
to keep the most impatient of his own officers in their duty, and the
most ardent of his enemies in a salutary dread.

Such were the motives assigned by Napoleon. Caulaincourt immediately
received orders to make secret preparations for their departure. The
rendezvous was fixed at Smorgoni, and the time, the night of the 5th of
December.

Although Daru was not to accompany Napoleon, who left him the heavy
charge of the administration of the army, he listened in silence, having
nothing to urge in reply to motives of such weight; but it was quite
otherwise with Berthier. This enfeebled old man, who had for sixteen
years never quitted the side of Napoleon, revolted at the idea of this
separation.

The private scene which took place was most violent. The Emperor was
indignant at his resistance. In his rage he reproached him with all the
favours with which he had loaded him; the army, he told him, stood in
need of the reputation which he had made for him, and which was only a
reflection of his own; but to cut the matter short, he allowed him
four-and-twenty hours to decide; and if he then persisted in his
disobedience, he might depart for his estates, where he should order him
to remain, forbidding him ever again to enter Paris or his presence.
Next day, the 4th of December, Berthier, excusing himself for his
previous refusal by his advanced age and impaired health, resigned
himself sorrowfully to his sovereign's pleasure.




CHAP. XII.


But at the very moment that Napoleon determined on his departure, the
winter became terrible, as if the Russian atmosphere, seeing him about
to escape from it, had redoubled its severity in order to overwhelm him
and destroy us. On the 4th of December, when we reached Bienitza, the
thermometer was at 26 degrees.

The Emperor had left Count Lobau and several hundred men of his old
guard at Malodeczno, at which place the road to Zembin rejoins the
high-road from Minsk to Wilna. It was necessary to guard this point
until the arrival of Victor, who in his turn would defend it until that
of Ney.

For it was still to this marshal, and to the second corps commanded by
Maison, that the rear-guard was entrusted. On the night of the 29th of
November, when Napoleon quitted the banks of the Berezina, Ney, and the
second and third corps, now reduced to three thousand soldiers, passed
the long bridges leading to Zembin, leaving at their entrance Maison,
and a few hundred men to defend and to burn them.

Tchitchakof made a late but warm attack, and not only with musketry, but
with the bayonet: but he was repulsed. Maison at the same time caused
these long bridges to be loaded with the bavins, of which Tchaplitz,
some days before, had neglected to make use. When every thing was ready,
the enemy completely sickened of fighting, and night and the bivouacs
well advanced, he rapidly passed the defile, and set fire to them. In a
few minutes these long causeways were burnt to ashes, and fell into the
morasses, which the frost had not yet rendered passable.

These quagmires stopped the enemy and compelled him to make a _detour_.
During the following day, therefore, the march of Ney and of Maison was
unmolested. But on the day after, the 1st of December, as they came in
sight of Pleszezenitzy, lo and behold! the whole of the Russian cavalry
were seen rushing forward impetuously, and pushing Doumerc and his
cuirassiers on their right. In an instant they were attacked and
overwhelmed on all sides.

At the same time, Maison saw that the village through which he had to
retreat, was entirely filled with stragglers. He sent to warn them to
flee directly; but these unfortunate and famished wretches, not seeing
the enemy, refused to leave their meals which they had just begun;
Maison was driven back upon them into the village. Then only, at the
sight of the enemy, and the noise of the shells, the whole of them
started up at once, rushed out, and crowded and encumbered every part of
the principal street.

Maison and his troop found themselves all at once in a manner lost in
the midst of this terrified crowd, which pressed upon them, almost
stifled them, and deprived them of the use of their arms. This general
had no other remedy than to desire his men to remain close together and
immoveable, and wait till the crowd had dispersed. The enemy's cavalry
then came up with this mass, and got entangled with it, but it could
only penetrate slowly and by cutting down. The crowd having at last
dispersed, discovered to the Russians, Maison and his soldiers waiting
for them with a determined countenance. But in its flight, the crowd had
drawn along with it a portion of our combatants. Maison, in an open
plain, and with seven or eight hundred men against thousands of enemies,
lost all hope of safety; he was already seeking only to gain a wood not
far off, in order to sell their lives more dearly, when he saw coming
out of it eighteen hundred Poles, a troop quite fresh, which Ney had met
with and brought to his assistance. This reinforcement stopped the
enemy, and secured the retreat as far as Malodeczno.

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