CHAPTER IX
SAUVE-QUI-PEUT
THE Emperor and the Guard did not leave Moscow until about noon on October 19. Then, since the successive reports of the King of Naples confirmed the retreat of the enemy, the Emperor took his whole establishment with him. Numbers of refugees followed the army. On the road we met many of the wounded from Woronovo, the full details of which encounter the Emperor learned only now, when he was already on the march. We slept at the manor house of Troitskoie where we stayed during the whole of the twentieth to rally our forces, for many men and transports had again fallen behind.
It was here that the Emperor finally decided to abandon Moscow. He was forced to this decision by the losses incurred at Woronovo, the reports about the state of our cavalry, and the realization that the Russians would not come to terms. He was still determined, however, to attack Kutusof; and to that end he speeded up his advance. It was his intention, if his success were such as he hoped, to push beyond Kaluga and destroy the ordnance establishment at Toula, which was the most important in all Russia. In any case, he was resolved to direct his forces upon Smolensk, which he wished to make his principal outpost. The Duke of Treviso was ordered to evacuate Moscow on the twenty-third if he did not in the meantime receive other orders. He was to make ready, also, for blowing up the Kremlin and the barracks.
Several detachments of Cossacks appeared on our flank, but did not venture to cross our line of march. I had arranged, by sending out detachments, that the couriers from Paris should come direct to us from the second relay station before Moscow. The Cossacks, however, controlled that point and delayed the couriers, so that none reached us for three days. As usual, this worried and annoyed the Emperor more than I can express. On the second day he said to me:
“I see it will be absolutely essential to be in closer touch with my reserves. It will be useless to drive off Kutusof and force him to evacuate Kaluga and his entrenchments: the Cossacks will keep interrupting my communications so long as I haven’t my Poles.”
The weather was bad [October 21-22] and the ground so sodden with rain that we had great difficulty in making Borowsk in two marches across country. The draught horses were finished. The cold nights were too much for them; and already we were beginning to abandon ammunition-cases and transports. It was on the evening of the previous day that the Prince of Neuchâtel told me how for the first time the Emperor, in discussing the army, its movements, and the possible issues, had made no reference to his former project: the scheme of holding Moscow while we occupied the “fertile province of Kaluga,” as the Emperor called it. This province must have been the apparent rather than the real object of our expedition.... The Emperor was more than ever set upon driving Kutusof from his position and forcing him to an engagement, not wishing it to be thought that the unfortunate skirmish at Winkovo had compelled him to retire. At no matter what cost, there must be some incident in the bulletin to balance the defeat of the King of Naples and prevent Kutusof from flattering himself that our retreat was the immediate consequence of it.
The belated couriers arrived, but only to inform us that a body of Cossacks, together with a great number of peasants armed and organized as a militia, were cutting off our communications beyond Ghjat; and that the range of their activities appeared to be spreading. A month earlier I had directed the officer in command of each relay post to make a note of what was going on in his district on the covering sheet of the despatches, where the time of arrival and departure were always entered. These reports from the road I passed to the Emperor daily, and he used to read them before anything else. At this time they indicated movements of peasants and the presence of Cossacks at every stage; and they made a great impression on the Emperor, who said to me, as early as the twenty-first:
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“We shall be without news from France; but the worst of it is that France will have no news of us.”
He instructed me to advise anyone writing home to write with great discretion, since any letter might be intercepted.
The Emperor reached Borowsk on the twenty-third. In spite of the very bad weather, in the afternoon he reconnoitred the neighbourhood of the town and the banks of the river [Protva] for a good distance out. But it was not until the morning of the twenty-fourth that he went forward to within a quarter of a league of Malo-Jaroslawetz, where Delzons’s division had been fighting since daybreak against Doctorov’s corps.
While waiting for the arrival of the Viceroy, Delzons accomplished marvels. The Viceroy hurried to his support as soon as he knew how much superior were the forces by which he was engaged; but Delzons was killed in the midst of his men. General Guilleminot took his place and renewed the engagement. Like the experienced soldier he was, he occupied and fortified a church and two houses which flanked our defence and which prevented the Russians, although they were greatly superior in numbers, from passing beyond those points in their different attacks. These fortifications gave the leading division of the Fourth Army Corps time to come up and relieve him. At the same time Kutusof’s advance-guard came up with Doctorov; and the fresh troops put in on both sides not only made the engagement brisker but turned it into a battle.
The Emperor, who arrived by eleven o‘clock, ordered the Prince of Eckmühl to quicken his march and move to the right of Prince Eugène, whom the Guard were also ordered to support. The First Army Corps went into the line about two o’clock. We could see perfectly the movements of the Russians, and expected that Kutusof would take full advantage of this very strong position37 to block our advance and himself take the offensive; but the Fourth Army Corps proved sufficient. Davout was hardly engaged. We had at least four thousand men put out of action, and a remarkable number of Russians were killed.
That night and the following day, together with the Emperor, I went over the battle-ground most carefully. We blamed Kutusof for sacrificing a good number of men, only to be beaten in the end and fail of his object—for since he defended his position, he must have intended to hold it at least till nightfall. The truth is that Kutusof, having learnt of the Emperor’s movements only on the twenty-third, was taken by surprise. The successive bodies of troops which arrived later to support Doctorov were only put into action to cover the retreat of his army upon Juchnow, for he was unwilling to run the risks of a pitched battle. The general opinion was that Kutusof might have better defended his position. For our part, we had to leave it in the hands of a small rear-guard.
Some Cossacks appeared that evening on the right of Ghorodnia, where headquarters had been established [in a weaver’s hut]. They were thought to be a party that had lost their way and would blunder into our outposts. We paid less attention to them than we might have done, because about noon in the same district, but on the left of the road, we had chased off some new Cossacks wearing crosses on their caps. They were mounted troops founded on the model of the Don Cossacks, and named after the provinces that provided them.
Two army corps were drawn up beyond the town; but the roads were so broken up that only one section of the artillery had been able, and that with difficulty, to reach their position. The Emperor moved back to spend the night [October 24-25] in a hut near the bridge at Ghorodnia, a small hamlet one league from Malo-Jaroslawetz. Nearly all of us camped in the open. The Viceroy’s success had got us nowhere. We held the field, but Kutusof had given us the slip. Our situation was therefore unchanged; and the army was not in a position to pursue the enemy.
The Emperor spent the night in receiving reports, issuing orders, and, on this occasion, discussing his difficulties with the Prince of Neuchâtel. He sent for me several times, and also for Duroc and the Duke of Istria, and discussed matters with us, but without reaching any decision. Should he follow Kutusof, who, having abandoned an impregnable position, had probably eluded us? And what route should he take to Smolensk if he did not find the enemy drawn up beyond MaloJaroslawetz? He had to make up his mind; and the course that drew the Emperor away from his enemy, whose measure he so much wanted to take, was always the one that came hardest to him.
An hour before daybreak the Emperor sent for me again. We were alone. He looked very preoccupied and seemed anxious to relieve himself of the thoughts that oppressed him.
“This is a bad business,” he said. “I beat the Russians every time, but that doesn’t get me anywhere.”
After a quarter hour of silent pacing back and forth in his little hut, the Emperor went on:
“I’m going to find out for myself whether the enemy are drawing up for battle, or whether they are retreating, as everything suggests. That devil Kutusof will never make a fight of it! Fetch the horses—let’s be off!”
As he spoke he picked up his hat to go. The Duke of Istria and the Prince of Neuchatel, who luckily happened to enter just as the Emperor was starting out, joined me in trying to persuade him to wait until dawn. They reminded him that it was very dark—that he would reach the outposts before it was light enough to see—and that, as the Guard had taken up their positions by night, no one was certain where the corps lay.
The Emperor, however, was still resolved to go until one of the Viceroy’s aides-de-camp arrived to announce that, though nothing could be seen of the enemy but the fires of the Cossacks, some peasants and soldiers had just been taken who confirmed the news of their retreat. These particulars made the Emperor decide to wait; but a half hour later his impatience drove him to start.
Dawn was hardly showing, and three-quarters of a mile from headquarters we found ourselves face to face with some Cossacks belonging to a troop of which the greater part, who were ahead of us, had set upon an artillery park where they heard some guns moving. They had carried off several pieces. It was still so dark that we were warned only by their shouts, and were almost upon them before we could see them. It was so unexpected to find them inside the lines where our Guard were bivouacked that (I must admit) we paid little heed to the first shouts. It was only when the shouting increased and closed in around the Emperor that General Rapp (who was ahead of him with Lauriston, Lobau, and Durosnel, the orderly officers on duty, and the advance-guard of the picket) came back to the Emperor and said:
“Halt, Sire! The Cossacks!”
“Take the chasseurs of the picket,” he answered, “and go forward.”
The chasseurs, only ten or twelve of whom had so far joined us, were already moving forward unbidden to join the advance-guard. The light was still so poor that nothing could be seen more than twenty-five yards away. Only the clash of arms and the shouts of the men fighting indicated the direction of the skirmish, or even that we were at grips with the enemy. M. Emmanuel Lecouteulx, the Prince of Neuchâtel’s aide-de-camp on duty, had a sabre run clean through his chest by a trooper of the Guard who mistook him for a Russian.38
The Emperor was left alone with the Prince of Neuchâtel and myself. All three of us held our swords drawn. As the fighting was very near and shifting closer towards him, the Emperor decided to move off several yards, on to the crest of the rise, so as to see better. At this moment the remaining chasseurs of the picket caught up with us; and the squadrons in attendance, to whom the Emperor had not given time to mount horse before he set out, came up immediately after. Guided by the shouts of those already engaged, the first two squadrons to arrive charged and broke up the foremost Cossacks. The two other squadrons, who were close behind, headed by the Duke of Istria, came up in time to support the first two, who were hard pressed and surrounded by a swarm of the enemy. By this time daylight was near enough to light up the scene. The plain and the road were alive with Cossacks. The Guard recaptured the guns and the few artillerymen in the enemy’s hands, and forced the Cossacks to recross the river; but we were left with many wounded.
It is clear that if the Emperor had set out, as he had wished, before dawn, he would have found himself in the midst of this swarm of Cossacks with only his picket and the eight generals and officers who accompanied him. If the Cossacks, who came face to face with us and at one moment surrounded us, had shown more courage and fallen upon our route silently, instead of shouting and wrangling at the side of the road, we should have been carried off before the squadron could rescue us. No doubt we should have sold our lives as dearly as one can by hitting out blindly with a light sword in the dark, but the Emperor would certainly have been either killed or captured. No one would even have known where to look for him, in a wide plain dotted all over with clumps of trees under cover of which the Cossacks had been able to hide within musket-shot of the road and the Guard.
If these details had not the testimony of the army and of so many trustworthy men to confirm them, they might be called in question. And how, indeed, can anyone believe that a man of such foresight, a sovereign, and the greatest commander of all time, could have been in danger of capture five hundred yards from his headquarters?—on a high road, the route of march of the whole army, and among the bivouacs of a considerable guard both of cavalry and infantry? Is it credible that a thousand men could have lain in ambush and passed the night within the range of three or four musket-shots from our headquarters without being discovered? But this is all explained and proved by the following particulars, which I have summarized with care as being illustrative of the Emperor’s habits.
We had very few light-armed troops left. They had not been spared, and were sorely harassed; and since they had been sent that same day to other points, this section of our position was poorly covered. In general our men fought well but kept a poor look-out. In no other army can the duties of reconnaissance have been so neglected. At nightfall they set up a few sentry-posts hither and yon, so as to have time to mount before the enemy might arrive; but they seldom took the trouble to cover rear or flank.
The Emperor only selected his headquarters at the last moment. Two considerations had led him to form this habit: first, a measure of wise prudence; and second—he admitted this himself—the advantage of having the whole of his entourage at his call until the very end of the day, thus keeping everyone on the alert.
He used sometimes to say to me: “If you make everything difficult, the really hard things seem less so.”
Officers and men sometimes suffered from these practices, no doubt. But that did not trouble the Emperor, who looked only to the main result and, being in the midst of his army and of a considerable guard, gave little thought to the organization of detail. Ever intent on taking the offensive, he failed to notice the trouble the Cossacks gave, now that the odds were against us.
The Guard had been in advance throughout that day, and so were obliged to fall back later on in order to take up position. Not having bivouacked until after dark, they did not themselves know where they were, or what was the lie of the land, but must have thought themselves still in the midst of the army. They put out no patrols. They felt secure in the belief that the rest of the troops were covering headquarters from a distance, and did not trouble even to make contact with them. In fact, the Guard and the headquarters took no account of anything that went on outside their own area. One battalion of the Guard was bivouacked barely three hundred yards from the spot, on the same side of the road, where the Cossacks had spent the night, and whence they came upon the Emperor.
By night or by day, the Emperor would mount his horse without warning: he even took pleasure in going out all of a sudden and throwing everyone off the scent. His saddle-horses were divided into troops. Each troop consisted of two horses for himself, one for the Master of Horse, and as many as were necessary for the other officers on duty with the Emperor. Throughout the whole twenty-four hours there was always one troop of horses saddled and bridled. Every officer had also to have a horse bridled; and the picket on duty, which consisted of an officer and twenty light horse, was always saddled and bridled. The squadrons in attendance provided and relieved the picket. On the other campaigns there was one squadron in attendance, but on the Russian there were four—half light cavalry and half grenadiers and dragoons. The picket never left the Emperor. The squadrons followed in echelon formation, and saddled only when the Emperor called for his horses. As he did so in haste and without warning, he always set out with only two or three other persons. The remainder caught up.
After Moscow, and indeed after Smolensk, the same squadrons remained in attendance for two or three days running: men and horses both were worn out. The Emperor usually returned to his quarters very late, after nightfall. The squadrons in attendance bivouacked as best they could, hurriedly and in the dark. When the Emperor mounted his horse in the field he usually set out at the gallop, if only for two or three hundred yards. However keen and alert they were, therefore, it was difficult for a troop to be actually alongside him from the very start. This explains how the Emperor came to be almost alone at one moment on the day of this scuffle.
The Prince of Neuchâtel and I were always close behind the Emperor’s horse. The general-in-command of the Guard who was then on duty39 rode at our side; but during the Russian campaign the generals of the Guard all had other commands, and the Master of Horse then fulfilled their duties by right. When mounted, we rode in the following order: an advance-guard of four light horse, three orderly officers, two or four aides-de-camp—this group eighty paces forward; the Emperor; behind him the Master of Horse, the Guard’s officer of the day, the chief-of-staff; behind these several aides, if the Emperor so commanded, and six staff-officers from the Emperor’s staff, two other aides-de-camp, and two officers attached to the chief-of-staff; then the officer and chasseurs constituting the picket; and then, five hundred paces behind, the squadrons in attendance. If we were riding easily, they followed. If the Emperor galloped, they trotted. These details show how small was the Emperor’s escort, and how far he was from surrounding himself with a whole host of men, as some have asserted....
The Emperor wavered for some time [October 25]. The fight at Malo-Jaroslawetz was, in his opinion, not enough to counterbalance the defeat of the King of Naples. Moreover, at the moment he wished to put himself in the right about that morning’s escapade. It was only after long insistence on our part—and after he had weighed the probability that Kutusof, if he would not stand and fight in an excellent position such as Malo-Jaroslawetz, was not at all likely to join battle twenty leagues further on—that we were able to persuade the Emperor, in this unofficial sort of council, to take the road to Borowsk. There part of the troops, the greater part of the artillery, and all the carriages were already stationed. In view of the state of the horses, this last was a weighty consideration.
Did the Emperor wish it to seem that he was yielding only to the convictions of others? Or did he really believe that he might yet break the Russian army and at last turn the whole campaign to his advantage before he decided on his winter quarters? I cannot say. But it is certain that the same question had been urgently presented to him during the night by some of the same people, and that he had resisted every conceivable argument brought forward to persuade him. He merely postponed his decision until he could see for himself whether the enemy had really escaped him. It was for this reason that he had wished to set out before dawn.
He came back to Ghorodnia, and from there sent out his orders. Next day the army marched towards Borowsk, where the staff slept on the night of the twenty-sixth. A few inhabitants had returned to the town. It might be thought that when he left Moscow the Emperor had somehow anticipated the course of events, for he had ordered various precautionary measures against the Cossacks. But, as we have seen, they were unavailing. Nobody was used to keeping good guard, and all were too much disheartened and too exhausted to change their ways.
Every man’s first thought on arrival was to find food for himself and his horses; and this could only be done by going off the main road, and so risking capture by Cossacks or murder by peasants. The marches were too hard, and the cavalry too few and exhausted, for adequate detachments to be sent out on reconnaissance or to cover our flanks. We made light, as far as was possible, of the risks run by the Emperor in the scuffle with the Cossacks, but within forty-eight hours the whole army knew the story; and the impression made was regrettable. This incident should have served as a warning to everyone, proving as it did our want of vigilance; but the lesson passed unnoted. At the same time it reflected no credit on the daring or courage of the Cossacks, who allowed themselves to be driven off, and yielded their gains to two or three hundred horsemen.
They are certainly the finest light troops in the world for guarding an army, scouting the countryside, or carrying out skirmishing sallies; but whenever we faced up to them, and marched against them boldly in a solid body, they never offered resistance, even when they outnumbered us by two to one. Attempt to attack them singly, or charge them in scattered formation, and one is lost. They return to pursue as quickly as they withdraw from attack. Being better horsemen, and mounted on more responsive horses than ours, they can escape us when necessary or pursue us when it suits them. They spare their horses: they may sometimes race them, or set them to long and exacting rides, but they generally spare them the futile running to-and-fro by which we wear out our own.
On the twenty-seventh the Emperor passed the night at Wereia, to give the artillery and other horse-drawn equipment time to take the lead. Having started very early, he reached the town during the morning, passed straight through, and did not halt until he was half-a-league beyond, on the road to Mojaisk, at the top of a rise overlooking the country round. There he stayed to watch the troops and convoys pass; and there they brought him Lieutenant-General the Count of Wintzingerode,40 aide-de-camp to the Tsar. He had commanded a body of light troops stationed on the road to Tver in order to cover Peers-burg and keep watch on Moscow, where he was taken prisoner.
As divergent accounts of this affair have been told since the war, I shall give here the particulars I noted down, from the reports made to the Emperor, at the time it took place. Having probably learnt that the French army had gone, M. Wintzingerode, who was near Moscow, went into the suburbs and entered into talk with some of the inhabitants. Several slight attacks by the Cossacks or by armed peasants had forced the Duke of Treviso to draw in his small forces so as not to expose them to danger in that large city. Our troops being concentrated round the Kremlin, M. Wintzingerode came disguised into the town as far as our outposts; and he entertained the hope of carrying out some military operation which should force the Duke of Treviso to evacuate, or else of achieving the same result by suborning our soldiers; which the inhabitants thought would be easy, as they believed the men to be discontented. Our troops were guarding only the Kremlin and our line of communications to Mojaisk, which led also to the army. M. Wintzingerode, wearing a civilian top-coat over his uniform, got into conversation with the soldiers at our furthest outpost. He was accompanied by several of the townspeople who also spoke French, and, following his example or instructions, these men talked informally to the soldiers about what was going on—the set-backs we had experienced, the privations ahead of us, the useless dangers we were running, the goodness and generosity of the Tsar Alexander, his kindness toward foreigners, his liking for soldiers, the uselessness of fighting now that the Emperor Napoleon was in retreat, how advantageous it would be to lay down arms and live in peace until the end of the war in a country so ready to welcome them, and so forth.
Some of the soldiers, taking him for a mere townsman, let him run on without paying much heed to him or his talk. A more perspicacious hussar, having heard some of his final remarks, kept him under observation. Shocked by his suggestions, he arrested him and took him to the guard-room. From there, in spite of his protests and objections, he was taken before the officer in charge of the city. When he was recognized as a Russian officer, he vainly tried to plead that he had come to parley. The story would not hold water. He was kept under arrest and taken to the Duke of Treviso, who treated him with consideration, but as a prisoner of war, being unable to accept the pretence by which M. Wintzingerode wished to extricate himself; for he had come secretly, in disguise, in an attempt to suborn our soldiers, and had not been announced by a trumpeter as an emissary.
M. Narishkin., son of the Grand Chamberlain and aide-de-camp to M. Wintzingerode, waited at a distance with a few Cossacks. Not seeing his commander return, he enquired of the townsmen what had happened, and they reported that he had been taken under arrest. Then, without giving notice, without sounding any bugle or calling an officer or sergeant to a parley, Narishkin went over to the French outpost and simply gave himself up, holding it a point of honour not to abandon his chief. This filial devotion on the part of an officer commanding a troop of men excited some surprise. The young man was sent to the marshal under guard.
The Emperor, to whom the capture of these officers was reported, ordered them to be brought to him. They arrived just as we did at the spot on the road where the Emperor chose to dismount. M. Wintzingerode was brought to the Emperor by himself; and the Emperor reproached him for serving with the Russians when he was born in Germany, the subject of a country either ruled by France or allied with her. He added that, M. Wintzingerode being one of his subjects, he would have him tried by a court-martial, which would also charge him with espionage; and that he would be shot as a traitor to his country. The more M. Wintzingerode tried to justify himself, the more angry the Emperor became. He reproached him with having been for a long time in the pay of the English, with having taken part in all the plots against him and against France, with trying to suborn the soldiers at Moscow, urging them to desert, and advising them to commit acts of cowardice, in the name of a sovereign who would have despised them for it. M. Wintzingerode replied that he was not born in a country belonging to France; furthermore, that he had not been in his own country since childhood, and that he had been in the Russian service for many years on account of his attachment and gratitude to the Tsar Alexander, who had befriended him.
Then, attempting to put a different colour on his actions at Moscow, for which the Emperor justly rebuked him, he went on to say that he parleyed to avoid useless bloodshed, and above all to avoid further misfortune for the town: that since the French were going to evacuate it, he limited himself to the suggestion that they should do so without fighting—a suggestion to their common advantage—and so forth.
The Emperor, more and more annoyed, was raising his voice to the point where the picket could hear him. From the first his personal officers had withdrawn a little. Everyone was on pins and needles. Glancing at each other, we could see in every eye the distress caused by this painful scene between a sovereign ruler and a captured officer—for of course what Wintzingerode had done at Moscow was not worth a second thought. I kept on talking to the Duke of Piacenza [then Charles Lebrun], who, like myself, commented very unhappily on the scene that was taking place. The Prince of Neuchatel was even more uncomfortable, as he had remained close to the Emperor. We could see this in his expression, and his remarks confirmed it when, on some pretext, he was able to move away and join us. The Emperor called for guardsmen to remove M. Wintzingerode. When no one passed on this order, he called again in such loud tones for guardsmen that the two attached to the picket came forward. The Emperor then repeated to the prisoner some of the charges he had already made against him, and added that he deserved to be shot as a traitor. At this word M. Wintzingerode, who had been listening with eyes on the ground, stood erect, raised his head, and, looking straight at the Emperor and at those standing nearest to him, said loudly:
“As whatever you please, Sire—but not as a traitor.”
And he walked away by himself, ahead of the guards, who kept their distance.
The King of Naples, who had joined the Emperor a few moments before, tried in vain to calm him, as did also the Prince of Neuchatel. He was walking to and fro with hurried, nervous steps, summoning now one of us, now another, to vent his anger. He met only with silence. I have never seen him so angry. The poor Prince of Neuchatel was beside himself. He came to talk with me, and sent one of his aides-de-camp to instruct the guards that they were to treat the prisoner with consideration. 41 He directed his own officers to supply him with anything he required. Meanwhile, to various people, the Emperor was telling all over again the tale of his grudges, both old and new, against this general. Some dated from earlier, even, than the war-before-last against Austria. The Prince of Neuchatel, like myself, had never seen the Emperor so completely lose control of himself.
A little way off we could see a fine large house. The Emperor, whose nervous irritability had not passed off, sent two squadrons to sack and fire it, adding: “Since these barbarians like to burn their towns, we must help them.”
The order was all too well obeyed. It was the only time I ever heard him give such an order; as a rule, indeed, he tried to prevent destruction which would damage only private interests or ruin private citizens. He returned to Wereia before nightfall. Not one inhabitant remained.
I called for the Prince of Neuchatel as we had agreed, and together we went to the King of Naples to make him undertake to speak to the Emperor about M. Wintzingerode. We had obtained information from him about his family and the exact date when he had left Germany; and the Prince of Neuchâtel had already taken an opportunity, on the way back, of explaining to the Emperor that M. Wintzingerode was not one of his subjects. I was easy about the outcome of this affair in proportion to the Emperor’s annoyance; for princes, like other men, have a conscience which bids them right the wrongs they have done. But as the hours seem long to prisoners, we were impatient to obtain the decision, which we could foresee, but which alone could remove all anxiety.
The Emperor sent to me to enquire if I had news of the courier. This order seemed to me to promise well, for it was much earlier than he could possibly arrive. The Emperor, although considerably calmed down, still needed to vent his spleen. I listened, and agreed that M. Wintzingerode’s behaviour at Moscow had been irregular; that he had made himself liable to trial and judgment by the corps which had taken him; but I concluded by saying that the Emperor could not have sent for him and spoken to him himself merely in order to show him a pointless severity—for the Emperor, I said, had used his prisoner so sternly in words that no further punishment was needed. I added that severity would now look like personal vengeance, and an act of malice against the Tsar Alexander, whose aide-de-camp the prisoner was; and that rulers had no need, after so many cannon-balls had been fired, to come to grips with each other in person.
The Emperor began to laugh, and pulled my ear affectionately, as was his habit when he sought to tease people. He said:
“You’re right; but this Wintzingerode is a bad character—a schemer. Is it proper for a man of his rank to go about suborning soldiers?—to lower himself to play the spy, the pimp?—to allow himself to use his sovereign’s name to incite soldiers to cowardice and mutiny? I shall send him to France.... I would rather they had taken a Russian: these foreigners in the service of the highest bidder are poor booty.... So it’s for Alexander’s sake that you take an interest in him? Well, well, we won’t hurt him.”
The Emperor gave me a little tap on the cheek, his signal mark of affection. From the first I had seen that he only wanted an excuse to go back on his words.
I did not wait for dismissal to go off with such good news; but the Emperor called me back and instructed me to persuade M. Narishkin to dine with us. He added that he would send him back to the Russian outposts in a few days, but that I was not to mention it.
“As to M. Wintzingerode,” the Emperor said to me jokingly, “you don’t take so much interest in him because he isn’t a Russian.”
Then he began again the tale of all his faults:
“He is a secret agent of the London government. He was a spy in Vienna, a spy in Petersburg. He is a framer of intrigues wherever he goes, and doesn’t deserve the least consideration—certainly not, on any grounds, the post of aide-de-camp to the Tsar Alexander, for close personal duties of that kind belong only to born subjects, honourable men against whom there is no political scandal.”
In this conversation with the Emperor I brought in, as we had agreed with the Prince of Neuchâtel, the plea that in the interest of French prisoners some consideration should be shown this man.
“That will not be the reason,” replied the Emperor sharply, “for my showing him mercy; his behaviour has put him outside ordinary rights. It is because I never really wanted to do him any harm; and though the Emperor Alexander is at fault in making such a man his aide-de-camp, I will not be likewise at fault in ill-using a man who is particularly close to him. I shall send him to France, with a good escort, to prevent him from intriguing throughout Europe with three or four other firebrands of his sort.”
The Emperor, in dismissing me, told me again not to mention as yet his good intentions toward M. Wintzingerode. I confined myself to telling the Prince of Neuchâtel that he could be easy about the fate of his prisoner, and he went with the King of Naples to dine in the Emperor’s quarters, intending to obtain a definite decision in this matter. A moment later the Emperor sent for me again, just as we were having dinner, and questioned me about the family and mode of life of young Narishkin. He directed me to tell Narishkin, as though it were from myself, that he wanted peace; that it rested with the Tsar to make an honourable one; ... that his position was very favourable, and enabled him to offer good terms to the Tsar Alexander, because it was clear that no military reverse compelled him to it; that the moment was no less favourable to Russia, as the movement of the French army, being in some sort a retreat, counterbalanced the constant advantages our troops had obtained, and put both governments in a position to negotiate with honour; ... that the Emperor would possibly send him, Narishkin, back to the outposts because he knew that his family were particularly close to the Tsar and he did not wish the Tsar to remain any longer in anxiety about Narishkin’s safety....
I went back to M. Narishkin, who had dined with us; I reassured him as to his general’s fate, and carried out all the Emperor’s instructions.
Meanwhile the King of Naples and the Prince of Neuchatel talked to the Emperor with their usual amiability. M. Wintzingerode was regarded as a prisoner and sent to France—and M. Narishkin with him. I gave M. Narishkin some money and, after overtaking our carriages on the following day, sent him an overcoat, as he had only his uniform. My body-servant found them marching with the head of our column, which they followed as far as Ghjat. Thence they were started off to Paris with an officer and a guardsman as escort. Chance served them well, for they were set free by M. Tchernychev [and a troop of Cossacks], who fell in with them beyond Borissow.
The Duke of Treviso had evacuated Moscow on the twenty-third, after blowing up the Kremlin and the barracks in accordance with the orders he had received. On the twenty-seventh he was at Mojaisk. From there, for several days, they had been sending back the wounded by the scanty means of transport they had been able to get together. Some consignments of rice had arrived there, and the Duke of Abrantès had established depôts which supplied the needs of the first arrivals.
The following day, the twenty-eighth, we passed within sight of Mojaisk but did not enter it. On his way by, the Emperor halted beside the road to obtain some account of the evacuation and of the distribution of supplies that he had ordered for the wounded.42 He himself took part in placing many of them in his own carriages, and in any that passed. In spite of all warnings that this would inevitably mean death, the unfortunate men who had left the field hospital to drag themselves along the road were placed, by his orders, wherever they could hang on—on the covers of waggons, and even in the forage-carts, or in the back of vehicles already crowded with the sick and wounded from Malo-Jaroslawetz. And in due course they were the victims of the Emperor’s good intentions, who had thought to remove them from any danger they might run through the barbarity of the Russian peasants. Those who did not die of exhaustion, through the discomforts of their position, either fell victims to the cold nights or died of hunger. The wounded of the Guard, and those who were in the Emperor’s carriages, were nourished and cared for... but of the rest, since all the other carriages were lost, not a score of them reached Wilna. Men in the best of health could not have endured this mode of travel, and could not have held on to the vehicles in the positions in which most of them were placed. So one can imagine the state of these unhappy men when they had covered a league or two. They had to endure jolting, fatigue, and cold all at once.
The carriages, drawn by tired and underfed horses, were travelling fourteen and fifteen hours of the twenty-four. They kept to the road, and found no place that afforded them any supplies. During the halts the drivers went aside from the road with some of their horses in search of food and fodder, however poor, in the deserted villages and encampments. Being uncertain as to what they would have to-morrow, they kept whatever they found carefully to themselves. Often they had not even time to start a fire. Never was there a sadder fate, a more wretched or hopeless position. Inevitable death seemed to beset us on all sides. The surgeons and doctors, with neither food nor physic nor bandages, and having for the most part not even bread for themselves, were forced to shun the hapless sick or wounded, to whom they could no longer be of any service.
As far as Orcha we had to cross a veritable desert. The country on either hand of our route had been marched over, eaten out, and left bare, by the army and by the detachments that joined us. The plight of the carriages can be imagined. Having left Moscow with us, already full of refugees, women, and children, they had had to take up the men wounded at Winkovo and Malo-Jaroslawetz; and to these, as I have said, were added also the wounded at Mojaisk. They were put on the top-seats of the carts, on the fore-carriage, behind on the trunks, on the seats, in the fodder-carts. They were even put on the hoods of the waggons, when there was no room underneath. One can imagine the spectacle our convoys presented. At the least jolt those who were most insecurely placed fell off; the drivers took no care. The driver following, if he were not distracted or in a stupor, would not be minding his horses; or even, for fear of stopping and losing his place in the line, he would drive pitilessly on over the body of the wretch who had fallen. Nor did the other vehicles coming behind pay any heed.
My eyes never saw a sight so horrible as the march of our army forty-eight hours after Mojaisk. Every heart was closed to pity by the fear of starving, of losing the overladen vehicles, of seeing the horses die, already exhausted by toil and starvation. I still shudder when I say that I have seen men deliberately drive their horses at speed over rough ground, so as to get rid of the unfortunates with whom they were over-weighted; and although they knew that hoofs would mutilate them or wheels crush them, they would yet smile triumphantly when a jolt freed them of one of those wretches. Every man thought of himself, and of himself alone. Every man felt that his life depended on the preservation of his little vehicle with its few provisions, and would have sacrificed twenty lives to spare the poor hacks that drew this last treasure. Each heartened himself with the thought that in front of him he would find foodstuffs; but except in some large towns, such as Smolensk, which had a few stores, they found nothing. The horses were fed on rotting corn and straw from old encampments, except when they were driven off from the road for at least a league’s distance, at the risk of capture and massacre.
On the twenty-eighth the headquarters staff halted at Ouspenskoje [a ruined manor house between Mojaisk and Borodino]. At two in the morning the Emperor sent for me. He was in bed. He told me to see that the door was well closed, and come and sit close to the bed; this was not his habit. He then spoke to me about the situation in general, and about the state of the army, whose extreme disorganization he still did not or would not admit. He ended by bidding me speak to him frankly, and tell him what I myself thought. I did not have to be pressed, but gave the Emperor my opinion in full on the consequences that would ensue from the disorganization of the army, and especially on the miseries that would be caused by the severe cold. I reminded him of the reply which the Tsar Alexander was reported to have made when he received, through Lauriston, the proposals of peace sent from Moscow: “My campaign is just beginning.” I told him that he must take this reply literally: the further the season advanced, the more everything would favour the Russians and, above all, the Cossacks.
“Your prophet Alexander has been mistaken more than once,” he said; but there was no lightness in the tone of his reply.
The Emperor did not seem convinced of the truth of my forecast. He flattered himself that the superior intelligence of our troops would enable them somehow to safeguard themselves against the cold—that they would take the same precautions as the Russians, or even improve on them. He did not question that the army would establish its winter-quarters at Orcha or Witepsk. He would not yet admit that he might be forced to retire behind the Beresina.... The arrival of the Polish Cossacks, of whom he still expected to find fifteen hundred or two thousand in a few days, ought, it seemed to him, entirely to change the situation and the state of our affairs; for they would guard the army and give our soldiers time to rest and feed themselves. Since Malo-Jaroslawetz these wretches had lived on horseflesh and a little mouldy flour paste. And this latter nourishment was had only by those who had gone on marauding expeditions; for the rest, they lived on grilled horseflesh alone. Horses that fell in their tracks were carved up while still alive.43
After an hour’s conversation about the army, about Russia, Poland, the prosperous state of France, and the means of making good his losses, the Emperor reached the main question, about which he had sent for me, and to which he had led up with this introduction. He told me it was possible—it was even probable—that he would go to Paris as soon as he had established the army in some definite position. He asked what I thought of this proposal: whether it would make a bad impression on the troops; whether it would not be the best way of reorganizing the army, and thus of holding Europe with a firm hand and keeping everything quiet; and whether, finally, I foresaw any difficulties about crossing Prussia without an escort.
He added that in a week’s time the Russian army would be in no better state to give battle than his own. They too needed rest and reorganization; it froze as hard for the Russians as for us. Moreover, the way in which Kutusof was following us without embarking on any major operation proved that he lacked the necessary strength. We had travelled so slowly, he said, and with so many stops, that it should have been easy for him to get ahead of us; Kutusof must know we were marching in column of route; yet we heard nothing of him. He said further that we should find a fresh and well-organized army at Smolensk, and another on the Beresina....
I told the Emperor that, since our plight seemed to me more precarious than he could see or believe, I felt no hesitation about the remedy. There was but one: that he should date his orders of the day, like his decrees, from the Palace of the Tuileries.
I told him that I would not be restrained by minor considerations, such as what might be said or thought in the army, when the question really was what might be attempted in Europe. I added that what he had thought of doing was the one thing which could be really useful, the one thing which a faithful servant could advise. He had no need to hesitate: he needed only to choose his moment carefully. As to the danger of crossing Prussia, it could be avoided by travelling under another name. Since nobody would know of the journey in advance, the possible dangers could be classed with the thousand risks to which one is exposed every day.
I tried to open the Emperor’s eyes to the real state of the army, pointing out that the evils of its disorganization were all the more difficult to check because discouragement on the part of certain leaders was one of its causes. They were indeed letting their units break up entirely, and would do nothing to keep the soldiers in hand, lest they should have to give battle with the men, too few in number, whose loyalty had made them stay with the colours. I told the Emperor what impression I thought would be made, not only in France but in Europe, by the news of his retreat, and, even more, by the news of those disasters in which he was still reluctant to believe; and I drew the conclusion that his return was necessary to offset this.
The Emperor, in the end, seemed less sceptical about my forebodings. He thought that only his presence [at Paris] could adequately hasten the mustering of all the forces needful to give us an army in three months. He ended by asking if I did not think that overtures to the Tsar Alexander, now that the Russian provinces would be evacuated, might not lead to peace.
“No more than at Moscow,” I replied. “The news of our retreat will have made everyone exultant.”
It was half-past five when the Emperor dismissed me. He told me to think over what he had said, and that he would discuss it with me again after he had talked to the Prince of Neuchatel.