THE Emperor left Smolensk on November 14, after ensuring a sufficient supply of flour for the Duke of Elchingen, who, acting as rear-guard, was due to arrive that same night. We halted at Korytnia [fifteen miles on], where we arrived quite early. The road was very hilly, and so difficult that we outstripped the carriages, which had left the day before. It was simply a sheet of ice; and the steep slopes, frequently found in that part of the country, were already littered with abandoned horses that had been unable to struggle to their feet. The leaders were so irresponsible, the riders and drivers of the waggons so tired, and their time so filled with marching and searching for food, that the artillery, like the cavalry, had not had a single horse shod for ice.
An hour after we arrived at Korytnia we learnt that, one league from where we were, the Cossacks had just attacked a small artillery park and the convoy of soldiers who were bringing back the trophies from Moscow.45 Moreover, the Emperor’s carriages, which we had passed, had just joined this park. The Cossacks had taken advantage of the moment when, the column having halted in order to double-up the teams for the ascent of one of those mountains of ice, there was a space between the front and rear of the column, so that the small detachments guarding it could not defend the whole of it. The Cossacks captured about ten horses and some of the Emperor’s trans-ports. These were simply robbed of their contents, because the drivers in panic had upset them into a ravine. The waggon containing the maps was among them. The artillery lost half its teams; and most of the officers attached to headquarters, myself amongst them, lost their personal effects.
The loss of the maps was just the thing to throw the Emperor into a rage, yet he showed no displeasure—not even with his own servants. This incident made everyone more cautious, and served at least to bring back to the road, for some forty-eight hours, many of those who had straggled off after food. Our situation was such that one is forced, however, to question whether it was really worth while to rally-in wretches whom we could not feed!
During the night the Emperor sent for me, and spoke to me, as on an earlier occasion, about the necessity of his return to France. He again brought up all the questions he had already put to me concerning the army, the journey across Prussia, and the rest, and asked me if I had given thought to the plan. He was beginning to realize the disorganization of the army, but heartened himself by thinking that contact with the corps which we should find on the Beresina would quickly restore order; for those troops, which were well-organized, would act as a rear-guard and hold our position while he rallied the troops from Moscow. He talked to me again about those Polish Cossacks who should, he said, join us within a few days. The Emperor still flattered himself that he could get the situation in hand, and that he could even assume a commanding attitude as soon as he had control of the stores at Minsk.
“With every step I take, I shall find reinforcement,” he told me; “while Kutusof, who will likewise be worn out with marching, will be getting further away from his reserves. He will be left in a countryside which we have exhausted. Ahead of us there are supplies in store. The Russians will starve to death back here.”
Although he tried to convey a different impression to others, the Emperor was painfully disturbed. The lack of news from France caused him the greatest annoyance, and this he did not disguise from me. We were reduced to sending off little notes to Wilna every day or two by the hand of Poles, or by other people whom we did our best to bribe into reliability. Often we asked no more of them than to take a trifling note to some posting-station whence communications with Germany were still open. One day we paid a Jew two thousand five hundred francs to send a brief message through to the Archchancellor. M. Daru, who sent it off, took advantage of the opportunity to write a few lines at the same time to his wife. Only that note arrived. How? The Countess herself did not know. She had a letter from her husband, while the Empress had not a word from the Emperor. The Police and the Post Office were thrown into a state of agitation. M. Daru’s letter, which, as one would expect, was very reassuring, first delighted his family and then created a sensation in Paris. Mme. Daru showed it round, and her husband’s handwriting was too well known for any question to be raised about its authenticity. Guesses ran wild. Of the many despatches sent off by the hand of officers in disguise or natives of the country, only one or two reached their destination. As public affairs were mentioned only in cypher, the Emperor attached no importance to these letters except for the purpose of giving news to people in Paris and Wilna about the army and their relatives there; and they did not receive the news.
Since the Viceroy had rejoined us, we had marched in single column and by the same road. One can imagine the confusion wherever the way grew narrow. The zigzag road was a sheet of ice on which even men on foot could hardly stand upright. Every moment carts and waggons were capsized on the ice, and blocked the road. Everyone was in a hurry and no one troubled to maintain proper order. Sure of faulty obedience, and certain that any method they might establish would be but momentarily observed, the General Staff issued no instructions. As always, every freedom was allowed to the discretion of the commanding officers, except that orders issued by them could be countermanded at need. The officers saw the evils of the situation but did nothing to correct them, since, so they assumed, demoralization would immediately break out again.
How, indeed, could one exact service, or any test of endurance, from a man whom one had to let starve, in weather that froze his fingers if he left them exposed to the air? How make any dispositions whatever during an unceasing march, and when the staff officers have lost their horses and must go on foot to deliver the orders they carry? When all are crowded on to the same road, and flanked by Cossacks who hardly let them get ahead out of their sight? There remained not a single brigade of cavalry in a fit state to cover our movements. The exhausted, unshod horses could go no further unless men dragged them by the bridle. Without drawing upon the Guard, who were themselves much reduced, we had not sufficient cavalry to carry out a reconnaissance far enough or boldly enough to give us definite news of the enemy’s position. Indeed we did not attempt it—not even though the Emperor had anticipated since the night before [November 13] that the enemy were moving into action against us.
We could not find a single peasant or man of any kind to act as guide. We had no means of information. Some detachments of Poles and of the Guard were sent out to scout, and returned after putting to the sword a few Cossacks whom they drove back upon a larger body, by which they were themselves obliged to retreat. They did not bring back a single Cossack to give us information about the troops in our neighbourhood. Like men in close confinement when they are allowed to take the air, we could make no sense of what was going on around us. The Emperor had remarked to us as early as Smolensk that the success of the Russians against Baraguey d’Hilliers would go to their heads, and that Kutusof would be forced out of his inaction. He was not mistaken; but the unity and soldierly conduct of the Guard reassured him as to the consequences of an engagement, of whatever kind it might be.
As we approached Krasnoë, we came into contact with Miloradovitch’s army, which consisted of Ostermann-Tolstoï’s and Ojarowski’s divisions with the addition of some cavalry, and which had taken up its position near the village of Merlino on the left of the road. The Young Guard and the Dutch division of the Old Guard under the command of the Duke of Treviso were sent to oppose this force. They checked the Russians, and held them off so successfully that our progress along the road was not interrupted. The Emperor made for the place where this engagement happened, remaining there as long as things looked serious. M. Giroud, my aide-de-camp, was mortally wounded by a bullet that hit him in the upper part of his thigh.
At first the Emperor was inclined to believe that this attack was an offensive on the part of the whole enemy army. But Miloradovitch’s indecision, and his withdrawal as soon as we took action, persuaded him that it was merely the skirmishing of an isolated body of troops, and was intended to harass and delay us whilst Kutusof was bringing the whole strength of his army against us. On first sighting the enemy, the Emperor had sent orders to Marshals Eckmühl and Elchingen to quicken their pace. He repeated these orders, and made up his mind to stop his retreat until he had more certain information about Kutusof’s movements, and about the movements of our own troops still in the rear.
Reports about the enemy forces facing us indicated to the Emperor that they were considerable; reports reaching us from the lines of march proved that our communications were frequently being cut by Russian contingents. We even knew from information given by stragglers that villages on our left, at a short distance from the road, were occupied by enemy infantry. All these facts determined the Emperor to stay at Krasnoë on the sixteenth, and prepare for a battle. Convinced that the only way to drive the enemy off and prevent them from continually harassing us—and also to rescue his own troops in the rear—was by taking a vigorous offensive against the Russians and thus proving to them that neither our courage nor our bayonets had been frozen, the Emperor decided on a surprise-attack by night.
His first intention was to put General Rapp in charge; and he even gave him his instructions. Later, however, he changed his mind. He entrusted the direction of the expedition to General Roguet, who attacked Ojarowski’s forces two hours before daybreak on the sixteenth, killed or took prisoner most of his infantry, and drove him as far as Lukino. This successful and daring action forced the enemy to withdraw; but the Emperor, having gathered from prisoners that the whole Russian army was in the vicinity, decided to take the offensive, there being no other means of safeguarding the Viceroy and the corps that followed after him. The Emperor, who was in the plain with the troops, was uneasy about Prince Eugène’s failure to arrive; his instructions had been to follow on behind us. But he had only been able to set out from Smolensk late on the fifteenth ... and had made contact with Miloradovitch’s forces drawn up for battle on the sixteenth. Stragglers, thrown back on to his vanguard by this enemy force, had been the first to inform him of its existence.
The Emperor knew, from the sound of firing and from stragglers, of the attack directed against the Viceroy, whose delayed arrival made him uneasy. He ordered General Durosnel, one of his aides-de-camp, to take two battalions of light infantry from his Guard, with two cannon, and go ahead of him so as to help the Viceroy make his way through. General Durosnel, at the head of this body of troops commanded by General Boyer, had barely passed the Emperor’s rear-guard emplacement when he came in contact with a horde of Cossacks, who made off at his approach. He was marching to the left of the road in order to carry out his manoeuvres more easily. Halfway to Katowa he saw within cannon-range a strong line of cavalry drawn up for battle on the other side of the road. Following suit, he formed his men into a square, and fired a few cannon-shots to find out the intentions of this force, which replied to his fire but took no other action. General Durosnel, aware of the importance of the diversion he had been instructed to carry out, and full of confidence in the veterans he commanded, had no hesitation in continuing with his march and leaving this body of enemy cavalry behind him.
Having come within sight of the Russians, General Durosnel had barely time to fire a round from each of his cannon, and to form his men again into a square, when he was heavily attacked by cavalry and artillery fire. The cavalry vainly attempted to break up his formation; their charges were repulsed with as much coolness as bravery. The enemy, however, were continually being reinforced, and had spread over the whole countryside. It was thus impossible to delay a retreat without risking six hundred men belonging to the Guard, the only force left intact in the whole army. Durosnel therefore began to retreat in good order. Although vigorously attacked, and pursued for a league, he carried out his movement slowly, and in so orderly a manner that at last the enemy cavalry ceased their attacks. Cannon-fire cost him several men.
He rejoined the army just when General Latour-Maubourg was setting off with his cavalry regiment, under instructions to relieve him. The Emperor, perturbed at the thought that a part of his Guard was in action and cut off from the main body of the army—no reconnoitring party sent out had been able to break through to General Durosnel’s contingent—was delighted at the safe return of this detachment. He was even more delighted at the arrival of the Viceroy, who had been helped to extricate himself by the diversion created by General Durosnel; and he invited him to supper, as well as the general, whom he praised several times.
This turn of events, which upset all the Emperor’s calculations, and which, if the enemy had had even a little determination, might on the lowest estimate have endangered all our troops in the rear, would have overwhelmed any other general. But the Emperor was stronger than adversity, and became the more stubborn as danger seemed more imminent. Bracing himself against his bad fortune, he resolved to fight rather than abandon Marshals Eckmühl and Elchingen. He reiterated his earlier orders to quicken their pace. But was the road free? And if the orders reached them, would they arrive in time?
The Emperor had expected some sort of partial attack, and could not understand the Russian tactics.
“Kutusof would never make the mistake of following behind me along a devastated road if he had not some big project up his sleeve,” the Emperor told us. “If Miloradovitch had any kind of force at hand, he wouldn’t have given way before a few battalions of the Young Guard.... The distance between Junot 46 and the rear-guard,” he added, “is so great that it is impossible to give any real help. If we stop and wait when there’s nothing to eat, we risk everything—or rather lose everything, for we can’t possibly gain our point in that way. How will we keep the troops alive, now we’ve halted them? We’ve been here twenty-four hours already, and everyone is dying of hunger. If I take the offensive against the Russians, they will withdraw. I shall have wasted my time, and they will have got ahead of us.”
Notwithstanding these reflections, the Guard had been or-dered to move back along the Smolensk road; strong batteries had been placed in position, and everything was prepared for a battle on the seventeenth. Although he had less than twenty thousand men, the Emperor had decided to come to grips with the enemy, and was full of confidence in his “old moustaches” whom he had doubtless kept in reserve for some such desperate venture as this. He had no doubts about his success, and believed, as in happier times, that his luck would hold.
On the seventeenth, however, he returned to his original plan. He ordered the Duke of Abrantès and the Viceroy to march on to Liadouï, whilst he arranged demonstrations which he hoped would make it possible for his marshals to get clear of the enemy....
But, while the Emperor was defying adversity at Krasnoë, and while the Russians were profiting so little from their advantages, Marshal Elchingen, in command of the rear-guard, where there was fighting every day, had only arrived at Smolensk on the fifteenth. He found that Smolensk had been looted—according to his account by soldiers of the First Corps, and according to Marshal Eckmühl’s account by stragglers. The fact is that the soldiers of the Third Corps, who counted on finding bread, found only disorder; shops practically empty, provisions scattered about the streets, the town full of stragglers who had just finished ransacking it, no one in authority, and no preparations made for feeding the rear-guard troops. In consequence of all this, no one wanted to remain there. The commissariat authorities had fled with the staff headquarters, and had even abandoned five or six thousand sick or wounded who, as we found out later, fell victims to the fury of the Russians when the Third Corps left.
Marshal Elchingen, who had been instructed to destroy the artillery abandoned at Smolensk and to blow up the ramparts, had now to find means of ensuring the subsistence of his troops as far as Orcha. This vital consideration, which inevitably prolonged his stay in Smolensk, could not in the circumstances be subordinated to any other. It must be borne in mind that his troops, obliged to fight every step of their way, had nothing to hope for from the places they would pass through; everyone else had been there before them. It should also be realized that the rear-guard had to march amidst the fires and general destruction which everywhere marked the track of our stragglers.
Such was the situation facing Marshal Elchingen. He had received the Emperor’s various orders, and, in the evening, a last letter from Marshal Eckmühl, who advised him of what was happening on the road, and informed him that, in order not to jeopardize his own troops and give the enemy a chance of rallying, he proposed to speed up his march—and that he, Elchingen, would be well advised to do likewise. Marshal Elchingen, however, could not start before nightfall. Threatened on the one hand by the very real danger of his troops being demoralized through lack of food, and on the other of being attacked by superior enemy forces, he decided on the course of action most in keeping with his own daring and with the proved courage of his men.
“All the Cossacks and Russians in the world,” he exclaimed when he received Marshal Eckmühl’s last message, “shall not prevent me from rejoining the army.”
He was as good as his word, and proved that the impossible itself is subservient to courage like his.
The various considerations which led the Emperor to believe that haste was necessary have been pointed out above, as well as the course of action he adopted on a basis of these considerations. He believed that, by forcing the enemy to withdraw from the road, he had done everything a general could do in so difficult a situation. Obsessed with the idea that Kutusof’s object was to steal several marches on him, and that therefore the general good demanded that he should accelerate his own progress, he rejoined the Guard and his staff headquarters at Liadouï. ...
The Emperor summoned me at four o’clock in the morning [November 18]. After repeating what he had already told us several nights before, and having reiterated the various considerations that led him to take his decisions, he expressed regret that he had allowed a gap of twenty-four hours between the departure of one regiment and another from Smolensk, and that he had not ordered Junot and a section of the Guard to start their march earlier, so as to cover Orcha. His announced intention was to speed up the pace of the retreat.
“Right now,” said the Emperor, “I could be made a fool of in several ways.”
The forces left in position to cover Krasnoë had orders to await the arrival of Marshal Eckmühl’s column. It was assumed that, in view of the last orders sent to him, he would only march in conjunction with Marshal Elchingen. Communications had almost broken down; the despatch of orders and reports was next to impossible, or took place so slowly that they rarely arrived in time to be useful. Staff officers, having for the most part lost their horses, went on foot; and even those who had kept their horses were unable to make them travel on ice, and so arrived no sooner than the others. The frost was more severe than ever, and the road therefore more difficult. The country was more hilly; the steep descents had become impracticable. It is impossible to form any idea of the difficulties that the artillery and transport had to surmount on this march, or of the number of horses lost by the former. We had reached our destination [Liadouï] by a road that descended so steeply, that was so sunken, and a part of whose frozen surface had been so polished by the large number of horses and men who had slipped on it, that we were obliged like everyone else to sit down and let ourselves slide on our posteriors. The Emperor had to do likewise, for the many arms that were offered to him provided no adequate support. That fact will give some idea of the plight of soldiers with their rifles and equipment—of artillerymen and transports—but especially of the horseman, who risked being crushed by the weight of his faster-rolling mount.
At Liadouï there were inhabitants and some food supplies. Chickens and ducks ran about in the courtyards, to everyone’s great astonishment. We had seen no such signs of plenty since crossing the Niemen; and every face cheered up, and everyone began to think that our privations were at last at an end. I mention these details in the course of describing our grave situation, because they bear on it, and because small things have a great influence on Frenchmen, whose spirits are quick to rise and fall. In the eyes of men accustomed since Moscow to find only uninhabited places, devastated houses, corpses instead of living men and women, it was a great event to come upon occupied houses with something to eat for supper. The modest resources of Liadouï, combined with what money would buy in its neighbourhood, enabled a good number of men to take the edge off their appetites—men who scorned every sort of danger, but who were reluctant to die of hunger, and wanted to live, if only to be able to face new perils.
Cossacks kept up perpetual raids along the road, which they constantly crossed between one division and another—or even, when there was a gap, between one regiment and another. Three determined men armed with rifles, however, were sufficient to keep them at a respectful distance. But wherever there was no shooting to fear, wherever transport waggons were moving along in disorder, or unarmed stragglers were making their way as best they could, the Cossacks improvised sudden attacks, killing and wounding, robbing all those whose lives they spared, and looting waggons and carriages when they came upon them.
It is not difficult to imagine the perturbation spread by such tactics, and their effect on the army’s morale. What was worse, they made communication extremely difficult, not only between one corps and another, but between one division and another. The General Staff, as I have already explained, received no reports; its orders either did not arrive at their destination, or arrived too late to be of any use. Staff officers, who braved every sort of danger, were frequently captured. To make any progress at all, they had to join up with some detachment, halt when it halted, and go forward when another detachment came by. Then there was the ice! Officers who had kept their horses were unable to make them move. They dragged them along behind, finding that they made better progress on foot. To form a true idea of this tremendous drama, it is necessary to have been present when it happened, to have taken part in it. Without exaggeration, the simplest things became almost insurmountable difficulties.... As dangers multiplied and, at the same time, difficulties were augmented, all eyes turned towards Orcha, which the Emperor, like everyone else, considered to be an important base. He had ordered the advance-guard to reach it as soon as possible, and had given instructions for the bridge-head to be strongly occupied.
We made our way from Liadouï to Doubrowna. There on the following day [November 19], in the morning, just when we were about to set out, the Emperor learned that the First Corps had joined the troops he had left at Krasnoë ... and that consequently this corps had passed through Krasnoë on the seventeenth, the day on which it was possible that Marshal Elchingen had just left Smolensk. We knew nothing definite about the Third Corps, of which the First had had no news since the sixteenth.47 Not a single despatch officer had returned. Had any of them ever got through? The Emperor was lost in conjectures. Miloradovitch’s remaining in his original position, and the departure of our own troops, made us realize all the dangers to which Marshal Elchingen was exposed.
The grave reproaches that the two marshals have levelled against one another, the severe judgment of headquarters and the whole army in regard to one of them, make it incumbent on me to report in this connection only the Emperor’s own expressions, the Prince of Neuchâtel’s private opinions, and details openly given to headquarters by trustworthy persons. The Emperor and the Prince of Neuchâtel said again and again that the two marshals ought to march in concert and support one another; that, as Marshal Elchingen made the progress of his retreat depend on the obstacles with which the enemy confronted him, Marshal Eckmühl should have modified his pace accordingly. But the two marshals did not like one another, and, having had a violent difference of opinion about the looting of Smolensk, they had ceased to co-operate.
The following details represent the facts of the case as recounted by the Emperor and the Prince of Neuchâtel at the time. The First Corps, aware of the dangers threatening the Viceroy, who was ahead of it, quickened its pace, keeping Marshal Elchingen informed of its movements but not bothering about whether he was able to follow. The harder the Russians pressed and attacked, the faster the First Corps marched, thus carrying out the orders which Marshal Eckmühl had received. Those orders he had passed on to Marshal Elchingen, assuming that the latter ... would act on them, and hasten his pace also. No one expected a persistent attack, or was made anxious about the Third Corps by the wild shouts of the Cossacks. Marshal Eckmühl argued that any other policy would have vainly jeopardized the shattered regiments that still remained with him. He could not have helped Marshal Elchingen, he said; for the First Corps would have been destroyed or taken prisoner before it could have got back to Marshal Elchingen or been overtaken by him. This version of the affair was given out during the day.
It is impossible to describe the unbridled rage and fury that everyone showed towards Marshal Eckmühl. Marshal Elchingen was the hero of the campaign—the general whom everyone felt anxious about. So universal and so warm was the interest in Ney’s predicament that no limits were observed in speaking of Marshal Eckmühl, and scarcely any even when he came into the presence of the Emperor, or when anyone met him face to face. The Emperor and the chief-of-staff were the more eager to saddle him with responsibility for the tragic event they feared had come to pass, because thereby they might justify themselves for having left so large an interval between the departure of the two columns....
The interval left between the departure of the various corps ... proves the extent to which the Emperor deluded himself in regard to the army’s situation and the dangers that threatened it. Did he flatter himself that he would once more bend Fortune to his use, and bring the cold within the compass of his will as he so often had brought victory? Things had come to such a pass that resignation was demanded by the force of circumstance. To have waited at Krasnoë would have jeopardized the army without serving any useful purpose; to return there, as was proposed by certain persons, when the First Corps was known to have arrived and the Third to have been abandoned to itself, would have been futile. Nevertheless, such a project was the expressed wish of many. Cooler heads saw, of course, how absurd that was; for Marshal Elchingen’s fate was in fact already decided one way or the other, when, so far away from him, extravagant plans were being considered for his rescue. The General Staff said openly that, when he learnt what had happened, the Emperor ordered Marshal Eckmühl to go back and march at the head of the corps which he should have supported. Such an order, however, was given on the impulse of the moment, and with the certainty that it could not be carried out.
The Emperor hoped (at least, so he said) that Marshal Elchingen would have known or have found out that the pace of the retreat had been accelerated, and would accordingly have accelerated his own pace, even though the orders to this effect had not reached him. He added that Marshal Elchingen was known to be not far from Marshal Eckmühl’s hindmost troops. But what was the point of such speculation? The Russian army was between him and us; and we were too far away to be able to help him, or for him to be able to make a sudden break through to us. The Emperor fixed all his hopes on Marshal Elchingen’s rare courage and presence of mind. The army did likewise. Despite this legitimate confidence in his hero, the Emperor never ceased to lament his loss, which he regarded as virtually inevitable.
“He will attempt the impossible,” he said, “and lose his life in some desperate attack. I’d give the three hundred millions in gold I’ve got in the Tuileries vaults to save him. If he is not killed, he’ll escape with a few brave men. But the odds are heavily against him.”
On the nineteenth, headquarters was established at Orcha, where the Emperor was relieved to find that his vanguard had arrived. Our troops had the bridge well in hand. We had relied on the local shops, but these served only to supply the needs of headquarters and the Guard. The countryside, however, provided further substantial resources, which, though certainly a boon to the army, were not an unmixed blessing; for large numbers of men, who hitherto had kept their ranks, left them when they found themselves amidst abundance. Of the many who went after food, but few returned. A deserter’s existence which held out to the men the hope of getting plenty to eat, of being free, of having a roof over their heads instead of bivouacking nearly always without rations, of obtaining rest and warmth during the night instead of duties in the bitter cold, —all these temptations were more than they could resist. Cossacks and armed peasants captured many of those stragglers from day to day; for most of them had carelessly thrown away their arms in order to get along more easily—and also to escape being forced back into the ranks, where their lack of arms made them useless.
But not even the pleasure of seeing an inhabited countryside with a few resources distracted attention from Marshal Elchingen, who all this time was the object of common concern. The Prince of Neuchâtel, as if he wanted to clear himself in advance of any responsibility for whatever happened to Marshal Elchingen, showed everyone the orders given to Marshal Eckmühl by the General Staff. He showed them to me. The outburst of fury against Marshal Eckmühl was the more general because the Emperor publicly charged him with being responsible for all the dangers that the Third Army Corps might have to run. The fact is, of course, that the pace should have been accelerated all along the line, and that Marshal Elchingen should have left Smolensk on the sixteenth; but the Emperor never could make up his mind when it was a question of ordering a retreat.
It should be pointed out, to the glory of Marshal Elchingen, that the army was of one opinion about him. To overtake us by way of the Krasnoë road was regarded as an impossible task; but if anyone could do the impossible, then Ney was the man. Every map was in use; everyone pored over them, tracing the route that Ney would follow if courage could open a way for him. “Once they’ve got rid of their artillery, the good old infantry will come through anything with a leader like that. He’ll bring them back through Kiev rather than surrender”—such was the general sentiment.
From the troopers to the Emperor, nobody doubted that if he were still alive he would bring his corps in. There was but one misgiving: that he might think we were waiting to second his efforts the moment we heard his guns, and so might find a glorious death in trying to cut a way through the enemy. What finer tribute could be paid to a soldier than this universal confidence that he would successfully carry out what most men would hardly dare even to attempt?
After his arrival at Orcha on the nineteenth, the Emperor had spent part of the day on the bridge. He had inspected the environs as if there were still some chance that the town could be held. Although there was no news of Marshal Elchingen, we continued to hope. Every delay made our plight worse, and so the retreat continued. The Viceroy was put in charge of the rear-guard; and on the twentieth, in the afternoon, headquarters were transferred to the manor-house of Baranouï, a short way beyond Orcha and a quarter of a league off the road.
Here the Emperor learnt from a Polish civilian of the Moldavian army’s march on Minsk. His informant, however, was unable to tell him exactly when it had started or how far it had progressed. All he knew was hearsay, picked up from someone else.
“Tchitchagoff intends, no doubt, to join Tormasov,” the Emperor said to me; “and they’ll send an army to the Beresina—or more likely to reinforce Kutusof here on the uplands. As I’ve always thought, Kutusof is leaving us alone now in order to head me off and attack me when this reinforcement has joined him. We must hurry. Time has been lost since we left Smolensk, although if my orders have been carried out I’ll also have my forces mustered on the Beresina. We must hurry to get there, for that’s where great things may happen.”
The Viceroy, who had remained in Orcha, announced soon after the Emperor’s departure that Marshal Elchingen had crossed the Dnieper near Variski on the night of November 18-19, over barely formed ice; and that he had with him, besides his own army corps, four or five thousand stragglers and refugees from Moscow who had sought shelter within his squares. The Viceroy was given orders to move towards Marshal Elchingen and help him rejoin us. He had, in fact, already done so by sending back one of his divisions.
Never has a victory in the field caused such a sensation. The joy was general; everyone was drunk with delight, and went running to and fro to spread the news; it was impossible to resist telling everyone you met. It was a national triumph, and you shared it even with your grooms. Officers, soldiers, everyone was convinced now that we could snap our fingers at Fortune and the elements alike—that Frenchmen were invincible!
Here are the full details, as given later by the marshal himself:
In the afternoon of the eighteenth a thick mist prevented him from seeing an inch in front of him, and his advance-guard ran headlong into Russian batteries. There were three enemy corps with formidable artillery on both sides of the Krasnoë road and on the road itself. When he heard firing, he closed up with his advance-guard, which he overtook at five o’clock. Believing that we were waiting for him, and that the cannonade would be the signal for a general attack on our part, he renewed his own attack several times in the hope of breaking a way through the enemy. His troops fought with remarkable bravery despite a murderous fire from all quarters. After breaking through two ranks, Ney’s men seemed doomed to die under the cannon-fire of a third, without being able to overcome all the obstacles that the Russians had prepared and now opposed to their valour.
Realizing that to break through was hopeless, he resumed his original position, continuing to fight until ten o’clock in order to force the enemy to keep their forces concentrated at that point. Firing then ceased, and General Miloradovitch sent a second messenger 48 (this time a major) with a flag of truce, to propose that the marshal should surrender. He, however, had already laid his plans, and had sent out reconnaissances to explore the dictrict as soon as he had become convinced that we were no longer near enough to help him. The marshal was confirmed in his intentions by hearing from this Russian officer that the whole French army had left Krasnoë, and was already a long way off. He kept the major with him, and continued in absolute silence to prosecute the movement he had already begun for crossing the Dnieper, up and down which he had reconnoitred the evening before. Although at several places along its margin the ice was scarcely formed, few lives were lost. It was even possible to save the bulk of the horses.
When day broke, the Russians found only our spiked guns, and understood what one brave man can do with Frenchmen behind him. The marshal, having reached the other bank of the river, sent out small detachments to go to Orcha with word for the Emperor. Only one of these arrived, to give the Viceroy the first news of what had happened. Platow, coming from Smolensk by the right bank and flooding the country with his swarms of Cossacks, had learned of the marshal’s crossing. He mustered all his men, surrounded the marshal, harassed him continuously on his march, and forced him to form squares at every moment to resist attacks from the enemy and to protect the stragglers, refugees and such wounded as he had been able to bring with him. The efforts of all the Don Cossacks were vain; Marshal Elchingen’s six thousand brave men kept their formation, nor were they stopped even for a moment.
This daring retreat was freely compared with what was called the “prudence” of Ney’s colleague; and the comparison made all the more talk because Marshal Eckmühl was unpopular. Everyone, high and low, availed himself of the opportunity to throw stones at Davout, without considering whether the orders he had received, the instructions he had given Marshal Elchingen, the circumstances in which he had found himself, were not sufficient to justify the course he had taken.
Marshal Elchingen’s return restored the Emperor’s confidence in his Star—a confidence by now too inveterate to be good for him or us.
On the twenty-first, headquarters were at Kamienska. On his way there the Emperor received word a second time about the progress of the Moldavian army. He had it from Count Daru, who had been following at some distance behind the Emperor, and had kept himself occupied by helping the sick that encumbered the road or were crammed into the few remaining houses. He had [thus] met a Polish officer, who had asked him to carry the word to the Emperor until such time as he could confirm it himself—for at the moment his horse could go no farther. The Emperor peppered Count Daru with questions—as he did the Pole, later on—but there was nothing to be learned except that Admiral Tchitchagoff’s Moldavian army had moved upon Borissow. This information roused the Emperor to anxious thought; and that evening he told us all about it.
“Shall we get there in time?” he said to me. “Will the Duke of Belluno take the offensive soon enough to divert Wittgenstein? If the Beresina crossings are closed to us, something may turn up—something unforeseen, some setback—so that we’ll have to cut our way out with the cavalry of the Guard. How far could I get with them in five or six days, with their horses in the state they’re in now?—how far, without letting the weakest fall by the wayside? With my Guard and the brave men that turn up, it’s always possible to break through. I must find out what my corps on the Dwina are up to—and Schwarzenberg. Maret, with every means of information open to him, has certainly warned them of the admiral’s movements.”
The Emperor then spoke to me about his journey to France as of something already settled, and told me that I should accompany him; that he had no need of another captain of escort.
It was now behind the Beresina that the Emperor thought he would be able to take up his position; the supplies in Minsk were to provide the wherewithal to rally and feed the army.
“The Reggio and Belluno corps,” he said to me, “will be covering the retreat within a few days; the men from Moscow will be stationed in the second line, and the stragglers will be rallied.”
There was still no news from France. It was this privation that the Emperor felt most. He scarcely dared even to hope that the Polish officers and men sent to Wilna had been able to get through, and the Duke of Bassano thus enabled to send reassuring news to France. The Emperor realized all the unfortunate consequences that such a silence might have; and this realization but added to the chagrin he was to feel over the next piece of news that came in....
On the twenty-second he stopped at Tolotchine, in a convent of some kind. It was there he found out that Minsk had been evacuated, and that General Lambert, commanding Admiral Tchitchagoff’s advance-guard, had occupied the town on the sixteenth. The Emperor was momentarily dismayed; to him this news meant the loss of supplies—of all the resources he had counted on, since leaving Smolensk, to rally and reorganize the army. Moreover, and worse than that loss, he now had to face the disturbing certainty that the Moldavian army was not moving to join forces with Kutusof and the main Russian army on our flank, as he had hoped all along, but was massing instead to cut off our retreat.
The Emperor’s character, like steel by fire, was tempered anew by these reverses of circumstance and this vista of danger. He immediately made up his mind to quicken the retreat—if possible, to reach the Beresina before Kutusof arrived there—and to fight and vanquish whatever stood in his way. He adopted instantaneously the notion and the line of reasoning that would console him by putting his situation in the best light; he decided, in short, that Schwarzenberg and Reynier, fully informed as to what had happened, must already have moved, thus altering the whole state of affairs. In any case, so he thought, the concentration of all the forces he had in that district would inevitably occur at Borissow. He looked forward to that concentration as a great advantage from the point of view of safeguarding the army’s retreat—which he now realized could not be stopped before Wilna. He was confident of finding the Borissow bridge well guarded. That was the main thing. Its defence had been arranged for some time; troops were available for the purpose, and, judging by what he was gracious enough to say to me as well as to the Prince of Neuchâtel, he had no misgivings about the matter.
That evening, when the Emperor had lain down, and had, as so often happened, kept Count Daru and Duroc to talk with him, he fell into a doze; and these gentlemen, waiting until he was well asleep before they withdrew, began chatting together. After a quarter of an hour the Emperor woke up and asked what they were saying.
“We were wishing that we had a balloon,” M. Daru replied.
“What for?”
“To carry Your Majesty away.”
“Good God!—things are bad enough now. You’re afraid, then, of being taken prisoners of war?”
“No, not prisoners of war, because they won’t let Your Majesty off so lightly as that.”
“The situation is very grave; that’s a fact. The issue is growing more complicated. Just the same, if my leaders set a good example, I am still stronger than the enemy. I can very well afford to disregard all the Russians, if their troops are all that stand in the way.”
It was on the next day [November 23] that the State Secretariat burnt its papers.49 M. Daru had been asking to do this ever since we had left Ghjat, where the destruction of equipment began.
The Emperor sent for me in the small hours of the morning, and told me of the bad news he had received:
“This is beginning to be very serious,” he said.
He asked me whether it was freezing enough for the rivers and lakes to be frozen hard, and whether the artillery could pass over the ice.
“I am inclined to think not, at least as far as the rivers are concerned,” I replied.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Didn’t Ney cross the Dnieper over the ice, after leaving his cannon behind, when it wasn’t so cold as to-day? It’s going to freeze, and we shall cross the Beresina marshes. Otherwise, we should have to break through the enemy, and then make a big detour. How many days of forced marches will it take to reach Vileika or Gloubokoje? The position is likely to turn critical if Kutusof has manoeuvred skilfully; and if Wittgenstein is ready to support him, or has joined forces with the admiral. This damned sailor [Tchitchagoff] brings me nothing but bad luck. As for Kutusof—he knows nothing about war. He is brave enough when he comes to grips in a fight; but he knows nothing about strategy.”
The Emperor told me what Daru and Duroc had said to him. “Their balloon would not be de trop,” he added jokingly. “This is one time when only the brave can escape. If we can get across the Beresina, I can control the issue, because the two fresh corps that I shall find here, with my Guard, are adequate to defeat the Russians. If we cannot cross, we shall try what our pistols can do. Consult with Duroc about what we could take with us if we had to cut a way out ’cross country, without transport. We must be ready in advance to destroy everything so as to leave no trophies for the enemy. I would rather eat with my fingers for the rest of the campaign than leave the Russians a fork with my crest on it. So come to an understanding with Duroc about what belongs to his department—but keep it quiet. I have spoken only to him and to you. We should also make sure that my weapons and yours are in good condition, for we may have to fight.”
The Emperor again went into great detail about his position and about the project of which he had spoken. I had a conversation later with Duroc, who told me what the Emperor had said to him and Daru. We agreed that henceforth everyone who fed in the Emperor’s Mess should be responsible for his own cup, plate and cutlery if he wanted to keep them. The pretext we gave was that the canteen mules were giving out.
Although the cold was still severe enough, the weather was overcast and threatened a thaw, or snow at the least. The sick and wounded froze during the night near the bivouacs. Carelessness, and the difficulty of finding fodder and, above all, water, caused many of the horses to perish. To water them, it was necessary as a rule to go a fair distance, and to break the ice. Then there had to be a vessel of some sort to draw the water, since the banks were not everywhere fordable. We arrived in the night: where was there a river or a well? The surface of water was dirt-coloured; the frost had turned everything drab. The ice, which had been broken with difficulty in the evening, would be frozen hard again the next morning; fresh efforts had to be made; to break the ice at all, an axe or an iron rod was necessary—and there was a shortage of every sort of instrument. When he arrived in the evening, a driver, half-dead with cold, would be afraid of getting lost. He would try and find some means to light a fire, to shelter himself, and to get hold of something to eat. When he was not too much overcome, or if it were not too dark, he would try and do what he could for the horses. More often than not, however, when the weather was bad, he just left them where they stood; and we set out next morning without the wretched animals having been unharnessed.
M. Giroud, my aide-de-camp, who had been in my carriage since he was wounded at Krasnoë, died during the night [of the twenty-second]. He had been unconscious for two days.
From Tolotchine to Bobr, where we arrived on the twenty-third, the road was even more thickly covered with dead horses than on preceding marches. There were many human corpses, too; and at every bivouac one saw large numbers that had died of suffocation from the fumes of the fires, because they had dragged themselves too close when already frost-bitten and half-frozen. Others still moaned but could not drag themselves away, either because they were too weak or because their hands and feet were frozen. This horrible sight made a profound impression on everyone. It was impossible to convince a poor wretch numbed with cold that fire was fatal to him; that the only remedy was movement, dry friction, and, even better for the hands and feet, friction with snow. As the Emperor passed through that ill-starred multitude, there was not a murmur or a groan to be heard. How generous those Frenchmen were in their misfortune! They cursed the elements, but had not a word of reproach for La Gloire.
The Emperor was convinced that Kutusof’s irresolution, and the time lost by Miloradovitch in waiting for Marshal Elchingen on the Krasnoë road, had put us several days ahead of the Russian main body; and that therefore we should have time to cross the Beresina. After what had happened at Minsk, that crossing had been a good deal on his mind.
It was at Losnitza, where we were the next day, the twenty-fourth, that we learnt of the skirmish [three days earlier] at Borissow. There the bridge-head, occupied by a Polish battalion, had been surprised and abandoned to a detachment of Cossacks. However, the gallant General Dombrowski ... had forced a way back to the bridge-head with his division, and had held out valiantly for ten hours against three divisions of Russians. But, so we learned at the same time, the press of superior numbers had compelled him to cross back again at nightfall. His movement had been carried out with the best possible order; and he had taken up his position opposite the bridge-head, at Niemanitza.
This unexpected news, robbing us of our only means of retreat—of the sole properly constructed way, for a great stretch up and down, of crossing this river lined with steep banks and marshes—was the worst the Emperor could have received. The details given with it confirmed the news itself, and also certain other particulars implicit in it. There could no longer be any doubt, for instance, about the arrival of the Moldavian army, which the Emperor had so long believed was coming to reinforce Kutusof.