Book: History of the Expedition to Russia

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




On the 4th of December, about four o'clock in the afternoon, Ney and
Maison got within sight of that village, which Napoleon had quitted in
the morning. Tchaplitz followed them close. Ney had now only six hundred
men remaining with him. The weakness of this rear-guard, the approach of
night, and the prospect of a place of shelter, excited the ardour of the
Russian general; he made a warm attack. Ney and Maison, perfectly
certain that they would die of cold on the high-road, if they allowed
themselves to be driven beyond that cantonment, preferred perishing in
defending it.

They halted at its entrance, and as their artillery horses were dying,
they gave up all idea of saving their cannon; determined however that it
should do its duty for the last time in crushing the enemy, they formed
every piece they possessed into a battery, and made a tremendous fire.
Tchaplitz's attacking column was entirely broken by it, and halted. But
that general, availing himself of his superior forces, diverted a part
of them to another entrance, and his first troops had already crossed
the inclosures of Malodeczno, when all at once, they there encountered a
fresh enemy.

As good luck would have it, Victor, with about four thousand men, the
remains of the ninth corps, still occupied this village. The fury on
both sides was extreme; the first houses were several times taken and
retaken. The combat on both sides was much less for glory than to keep
or acquire a refuge against the destructive cold. It was not until
half-past eleven at night that the Russians gave up the contest, and
went from it half frozen, to seek for another in the surrounding
villages.

The following day, December 5th, Ney and Maison had expected that the
Duke of Belluno would replace them at the rear-guard; but they found
that that marshal had retired, according to his instructions, and that
they were left alone in Malodeczno with only sixty men. All the rest had
fled; the rigour of the climate had completely knocked up their
soldiers, whom the Russians to the very last moment were unable to
conquer; their arms fell from their hands, and they themselves fell at a
few paces distance from their arms.

Maison, who united great vigour of mind with a very strong constitution,
was not intimidated; he continued his retreat to Bienitza, rallying at
every step men who were incessantly escaping from him, but still
continuing to give proofs of the existence of a rear-guard, with a few
foot-soldiers. This was all that was required; for the Russians
themselves were frozen, and obliged to disperse before night into the
neighbouring habitations, which they durst not quit until it was
completely daylight. They then recommenced their pursuit of us, but
without making any attack; for with the exception of some numb efforts,
the violence of the temperature was such as not to allow either party to
halt with the view of making an attack, or of defending themselves.

In the mean time, Ney, being surprised at Victor's departure, went after
him, overtook him, and tried to prevail upon him to halt; but the Duke
of Belluno, having orders to retreat, refused. Ney then wanted him to
give him up his soldiers, offering to take the command of them; but
Victor would neither consent to do that, nor to take the rear-guard
without express orders. In the altercation which arose in consequence
between these two, the Prince of the Moskwa gave way to his passion in a
most violent manner, without producing any effect on the coolness of
Victor. At last an order of the Emperor arrived; Victor was instructed
to support the retreat, and Ney was summoned to Smorgoni.




CHAP. XIII.


Napoleon had just arrived there amidst a crowd of dying men, devoured
with chagrin, but not allowing the least emotion to exhibit itself in
his countenance, at the sight of these unhappy men's sufferings, who, on
the other hand, had allowed no murmurs to escape them in his presence.
It is true that a seditious movement was impossible; it would have
required an additional effort, as the strength of every man was fully
occupied in struggling with hunger, cold, and fatigue; it would have
required union, agreement, and mutual understanding, while famine and so
many evils separated and isolated them, by concentrating every man's
feelings completely in himself. Far from exhausting themselves in
provocations or complaints, they marched along silently, exerting all
their efforts against a hostile atmosphere, and diverted from every
other idea by a state of continual action and suffering. Their physical
wants absorbed their whole moral strength; they thus lived mechanically
in their sensations, continuing in their duty from recollection, from
the impressions which they had received in better times, and in no
slight degree from that sense of honour and love of glory which had been
inspired by twenty years of victory, and the warmth of which still
survived and struggled within them.

The authority of the commanders also remained complete and respected,
because it had always been eminently paternal, and because the dangers,
the triumphs, and the calamities had always been shared in common. It
was an unhappy family, the head of which was perhaps the most to be
pitied. The Emperor and the grand army, therefore, preserved towards
each other a melancholy and noble silence; they were both too proud to
utter complaints, and too experienced not to feel the inutility of them.

Meantime, however, Napoleon had entered precipitately into his last
imperial head-quarters; he there finished his final instructions, as
well as the 29th and last bulletin of his expiring army. Precautions
were taken in his inner apartment, that nothing of what was about to
take place there should transpire until the following day.

But the presentiment of a last misfortune seized his officers; all of
them would have wished to follow him. Their hearts yearned after France,
to be once more in the bosom of their families, and to flee from this
horrible climate; but not one of them ventured to express a wish of the
kind; duty and honour restrained them.

While they affected a tranquillity which they were far from tasting, the
night and the moment which the Emperor had fixed for declaring his
resolution to the commanders of the army arrived. All the marshals were
summoned. As they successively entered, he took each of them aside in
private, and first of all gained their approbation of his plan, of some
by his arguments, and of others by confidential effusions.

Thus it was, that on perceiving Davoust, he ran forward to meet him, and
asked him why it was that he never saw him, and if he had entirely
deserted him? And upon Davoust's reply that he fancied he had incurred
his displeasure, the Emperor explained himself mildly, received his
answers favourably, confided to him the road he meant to travel, and
took his advice, respecting its details.

His manner was kind and flattering to them all; afterwards, having
assembled them at his table, he complimented them for their noble
actions during the campaign. As to himself, the only confession he made
of his temerity was couched in these words: "If I had been born to the
throne, if I had been a Bourbon, it would have been easy for me not to
have committed any faults."

When their entertainment was over, he made Prince Eugene read to them
his twenty-ninth bulletin; after which, declaring aloud what he had
already confided to each of them, he told them, "that he was about to
depart that very night with Duroc, Caulaincourt, and Lobau, for Paris.
That his presence there was indispensable for France as well as for the
remains of his unfortunate army. It was there only he could take
measures for keeping the Austrians and Prussians in check. These nations
would certainly pause before they declared war against him, when they
saw him at the head of the French nation, and a fresh army of twelve
hundred thousand men."

He added, that "he had ordered Ney to proceed to Wilna, there to
reorganise the army. That Rapp would second him, and afterwards go to
Dantzic, Lauriston to Warsaw, and Narbonne to Berlin; that his household
would remain with the army; but that it would be necessary to strike a
blow at Wilna, and stop the enemy there. There they would find Loison,
De Wrede, reinforcements, provisions, and ammunition of all sorts;
afterwards they would go into winter-quarters on the other side of the
Niemen; that he hoped the Russians would not pass the Vistula before his
return."

In conclusion, "I leave the King of Naples to command the army. I hope
that you will yield him the same obedience as you would to myself, and
that the greatest harmony will prevail among you."

As it was now ten o'clock at night, he then rose, squeezed their hands
affectionately, embraced them, and departed.




BOOK XII.




CHAP. I.


Comrades! I must confess that my spirit, discouraged, refused to
penetrate farther into the recollection of so many horrors. Having
arrived at the departure of Napoleon, I had flattered myself that my
task was completed. I had announced myself as the historian of that
great epoch, when we were precipitated from the highest summit of glory
to the deepest abyss of misfortune; but now that nothing remains for me
to retrace but the most frightful miseries, why should we not spare
ourselves, you the pain of reading them, and myself that of tasking a
memory which has now only to rake up embers, nothing but disasters to
reckon, and which can no longer write but upon tombs?

But as it was our fate to push bad as well as good fortune to the utmost
verge of improbability, I will endeavour to keep the promise I have made
you to the conclusion. Moreover, when the history of great men relates
even their last moments, how can I conceal the last sighs of the grand
army when it was expiring? Every thing connected with it appertains to
renown, its dying groans as well as its cries of victory. Every thing in
it was grand; it will be our lot to astonish future ages with our glory
and our sorrow. Melancholy consolation! but the only one that remains to
us; for doubt it not, comrades, the noise of so great a fall will echo
in that futurity, in which great misfortunes immortalize as much as
great glory.

Napoleon passed through the crowd of his officers, who were drawn up in
an avenue as he passed, bidding them adieu merely by forced and
melancholy smiles; their good wishes, equally silent, and expressed only
by respectful gestures, he carried with him. He and Caulaincourt shut
themselves up in a carriage; his Mameluke, and Wonsowitch, captain of
his guard, occupied the box; Duroc and Lobau followed in a sledge.

His escort at first consisted only of Poles; afterwards of the
Neapolitans of the royal guard. This corps consisted of between six and
seven hundred men, when it left Wilna to meet the Emperor; it perished
entirely in that short passage; the winter was its only adversary. That
very night the Russians surprised and afterwards abandoned Youpranoui,
(or, as others say, Osmiana,) a town through which the escort had to
pass. Napoleon was within an hour of falling into that affray.

He met the Duke of Bassano at Miedniki. His first words to him were,
"that he had no longer an army; that for several days past he had been
marching in the midst of a troop of disbanded men wandering to and fro
in search of subsistence; that they might still be rallied by giving
them bread, shoes, clothing, and arms; but that the Duke's military
administration had anticipated nothing, and his orders had not been
executed." But upon Maret replying, by showing him a statement of the
immense magazines collected at Wilna, he exclaimed, "that he gave him
fresh life! that he would give him an order to transmit to Murat and
Berthier to halt for eight days in that capital, there to rally the
army, and infuse into it sufficient heart and strength to continue the
retreat less deplorably."

The subsequent part of Napoleon's journey was effected without
molestation. He went round Wilna by its suburbs, crossed Wilkowiski,
where he exchanged his carriage for a sledge, stopped during the 10th at
Warsaw, to ask the Poles for a levy of ten thousand Cossacks, to grant
them some subsidies, and to promise them he would speedily return at the
head of three hundred thousand men. From thence he rapidly crossed
Silesia, visited Dresden, and its monarch, passed through Hanau, Mentz,
and finally got to Paris, where he suddenly made his appearance on the
19th of December, two days after the appearance of his twenty-ninth
bulletin.

From Malo-Yaroslawetz to Smorgoni, this master of Europe had been no
more than the general of a dying and disbanded army. From Smorgoni to
the Rhine, he was an unknown fugitive, travelling through a hostile
country; beyond the Rhine he again found himself the master and the
conqueror of Europe. A last breeze of the wind of prosperity once more
swelled his sails.

Meanwhile, his generals, whom he left at Smorgoni, approved of his
departure, and, far from being discouraged, placed all their hopes in
it. The army had now only to flee, the road was open, and the Russian
frontier at a very short distance. They were getting within reach of a
reinforcement of eighteen thousand men, all fresh troops, of a great
city, and immense magazines. Murat and Berthier, left to themselves,
fancied themselves able to regulate the flight. But in the midst of the
extreme disorder, it required a colossus for a rallying point, and he
had just disappeared. In the great chasm which he left, Murat was
scarcely perceptible.

It was then too clearly seen that a great man is not replaced, either
because the pride of his followers can no longer stoop to obey another,
or that having always thought of, foreseen, and ordered every thing
himself, he had only formed good instruments, skilful lieutenants, but
no commanders.

The very first night, a general refused to obey. The marshal who
commanded the rear-guard was almost the only one who returned to the
royal head-quarters. Three thousand men of the old and young guard were
still there. This was the whole of the grand army, and of that gigantic
body there remained nothing but the head. But at the news of Napoleon's
departure, these veterans, spoiled by the habit of being commanded only
by the conqueror of Europe, being no longer supported by the honour of
serving him, and scorning to act as guards to another, gave way in their
turn, and voluntarily fell into disorder.

Most of the colonels of the army, who had hitherto been such subjects of
admiration, and had marched on, with only four or five officers or
soldiers around their eagle, preserving their place of battle, now
followed no orders but their own; each of them fancied himself entrusted
with his own safety, and looked only to himself for it. Men there were
who marched two hundred leagues without even looking round. It was an
almost general _sauve-qui-peut_.

The Emperor's disappearance and Murat's incapacity were not, however,
the only causes of this dispersion; the principal certainly was the
severity of the winter, which at that moment became extreme. It
aggravated every thing, and seemed to have planted itself completely
between Wilna and the army.

Till we arrived at Malodeczno, and up to the 4th of December, the day
when it set in upon us with such violence, the march, although painful,
had been marked by a smaller number of deaths than before we reached the
Berezina. This respite was partly owing to the vigorous efforts of Ney
and Maison, which had kept the enemy in check, to the then milder
temperature, to the supplies which were obtained from a less ravaged
country, and, finally, to the circumstance that they were the strongest
men who had escaped from the passage of the Berezina.

The partial organization which had been introduced into the disorder was
kept up. The mass of runaways kept on their way, divided into a number
of petty associations of eight or ten men. Many of these bands still
possessed a horse, which carried their provisions, and was himself
finally destined to be converted to that purpose. A covering of rags,
some utensils, a knapsack, and a stick, formed the accoutrements and the
armour of these poor fellows. They no longer possessed either the arms
or the uniform of a soldier, nor the desire of combating any other
enemies than hunger and cold; but they still retained perseverance,
firmness, the habit of danger and suffering, and a spirit always ready,
pliant, and quick in making the most of their situation. Finally, among
the soldiers still under arms, the dread of a nickname, by which they
themselves ridiculed their comrades who had fallen into disorder,
retained some influence.

But after leaving Malodeczno, and the departure of Napoleon, when winter
with all its force, and doubled in severity, attacked each of us, there
was a complete dissolution of all those associations against misfortune.
It was no longer any thing but a multitude of isolated and individual
struggles. The best no longer respected themselves; nothing stopped
them; no speaking looks detained them; misfortune was hopeless of
assistance, and even of regret; discouragement had no longer judges to
condemn, or witnesses to prove it; all were its victims.

Henceforward there was no longer fraternity in arms, there was an end to
all society, to all ties; the excess of evils had brutified them.
Hunger, devouring hunger, had reduced these unfortunate men to the
brutal instinct of self-preservation, all which constitutes the
understanding of the most ferocious animals, and which is ready to
sacrifice every thing to itself; a rough and barbarous nature seemed to
have communicated to them all its fury. Like savages, the strongest
despoiled the weakest; they rushed round the dying, and frequently
waited not for their last breath. When a horse fell, you might have
fancied you saw a famished pack of hounds; they surrounded him, they
tore him to pieces, for which they quarrelled among themselves like
ravenous dogs.

The greater number, however, preserved sufficient moral strength to
consult their own safety without injuring others; but this was the last
effort of their virtue. If either leader or comrade fell by their side,
or under the wheels of the cannon, in vain did they call for assistance,
in vain did they invoke the names of a common country, religion, and
cause; they could not even obtain a passing look. The cold inflexibility
of the climate had completely passed into their hearts; its rigour had
contracted their feelings equally with their countenances. With the
exception of a few of the commanders, all were absorbed by their
sufferings, and terror left no room for compassion.

Thus it was that the same egotism with which excessive prosperity has
been reproached, was produced by the excess of misfortune, but much more
excusable in the latter; the first being voluntary, and the last
compulsive; the first a crime of the heart, and the other an impulse of
instinct entirely physical; and certainly it was hazarding one's life to
stop for an instant. In this universal shipwreck, the stretching forth
one's hand to a dying leader or comrade was a wonderful act of
generosity. The least movement of humanity became a sublime action.

There were a few, however, who stood firm against both heaven and earth;
these protected and assisted the weakest; but these were indeed rare.




CHAP. II.


On the 6th of December, the very day after Napoleon's departure, the sky
exhibited a still more dreadful appearance. You might see icy particles
floating in the air; the birds fell from it quite stiff and frozen. The
atmosphere was motionless and silent; it seemed as if every thing which
possessed life and movement in nature, the wind itself, had been seized,
chained, and as it were frozen by an universal death. Not the least word
or murmur was then heard: nothing but the gloomy silence of despair and
the tears which proclaimed it.

We flitted along in this empire of death like unhappy spirits. The dull
and monotonous sound of our steps, the cracking of the snow, and the
feeble groans of the dying, were the only interruptions to this vast and
doleful silence. Anger and imprecations there were none, nor any thing
which indicated a remnant of heat; scarcely did strength enough remain
to utter a prayer; most of them even fell without complaining, either
from weakness or resignation, or because people only complain when they
look for kindness, and fancy they are pitied.

Such of our soldiers as had hitherto been the most persevering, here
lost heart entirely. Sometimes the snow opened under their feet, but
more frequently its glassy surface affording them no support, they
slipped at every step, and marched from one fall to another. It seemed
as if this hostile soil refused to carry them, that it escaped under
their efforts, that it led them into snares, as if to embarrass and
slacken their march, and deliver them to the Russians who were in
pursuit of them, or to their terrible climate.

And really, whenever they halted for a moment from exhaustion, the
winter, laying his heavy and icy hand upon them, was ready to seize upon
his prey. In vain did these poor unfortunates, feeling themselves
benumbed, raise themselves, and already deprived of the power of speech
and plunged into a stupor, proceed a few steps like automatons; their
blood freezing in their veins, like water in the current of rivulets,
congealed their heart, and then flew back to their head; these dying men
then staggered as if they had been intoxicated. From their eyes, which
were reddened and inflamed by the continual aspect of the snow, by the
want of sleep, and the smoke of bivouacs, there flowed real tears of
blood; their bosom heaved heavy sighs; they looked at heaven, at us, and
at the earth, with an eye dismayed, fixed and wild; it expressed their
farewell, and perhaps their reproaches to the barbarous nature which
tortured them. They were not long before they fell upon their knees, and
then upon their hands; their heads still wavered for a few minutes
alternately to the right and left, and from their open mouth some
agonizing sounds escaped; at last it fell in its turn upon the snow,
which it reddened immediately with livid blood; and their sufferings
were at an end.

Their comrades passed by them without moving a step out of their way,
for fear of prolonging their journey, or even turning their head, for
their beards and their hair were stiffened with the ice, and every
moment was a pain. They did not even pity them; for, in short, what had
they lost by dying? what had they left behind them? They suffered so
much; they were still so far from France; so much divested of feelings
of country by the surrounding aspect, and by misery; that every dear
illusion was broken, and hope almost destroyed. The greater number,
therefore, were become careless of dying, from necessity, from the habit
of seeing it, and from fashion, sometimes even treating it
contemptuously; but more frequently, on seeing these unfortunates
stretched out, and immediately stiffened, contenting themselves with the
thought that they had no more wishes, that they were at rest, that their
sufferings were terminated! And, in fact, death, in a situation quiet,
certain, and uniform, may be always a strange event, a frightful
contrast, a terrible revolution; but in this tumult and violent and
continual movement of a life of constant action, danger, and suffering,
it appeared nothing more than a transition, a slight change, an
additional removal, and which excited little alarm.

Such, were the last _days_ of the grand army. Its last _nights_ were
still more frightful; those whom they surprised marching together, far
from every habitation, halted on the borders of the woods; there they
lighted their fires, before which they remained the whole night, erect
and motionless like spectres. They seemed as if they could never have
enough of the heat; they kept so close to it as to burn their clothes,
as well as the frozen parts of their body, which the fire decomposed.
The most dreadful pain then compelled them to stretch themselves, and
the next day they attempted in vain to rise.

In the mean time, such as the winter had almost wholly spared, and who
still retained some portion of courage, prepared their melancholy meal.
It consisted, ever since they had left Smolensk, of some slices of
horse-flesh broiled, and some rye-meal diluted into a _bouillie_ with
snow water, or kneaded into muffins, which they seasoned, for want of
salt, with the powder of their cartridges.

The sight of these fires was constantly attracting fresh spectres, who
were driven back by the first comers. These poor wretches wandered about
from one bivouac to another, until they were struck by the frost and
despair together, and gave themselves up for lost. They then laid
themselves down upon the snow, behind their more fortunate comrades, and
there expired. Many of them, devoid of the means and the strength
necessary to cut down the lofty fir trees, made vain attempts to set
fire to them at the trunk; but death speedily surprised them around
these trees in every sort of attitude.

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