CHAPTER XII
THE BERESINA
IT looked as if we were fated in this cruel campaign to suffer all the most infuriating reverses of which Fortune is capable. Everything best suited to upset the Emperor’s plans came then in quick succession. After having had to face the loss of all the supplies on which he had counted to meet the army’s needs and to provide for its reorganization, he now lost, when no other hope remained to him, the one assured means of crossing the Beresina. Anyone else would have been overwhelmed.
The Emperor rose superior to the mischances which had befallen him. These reverses, instead of disheartening him, brought out more than ever his characteristic energy; he showed what sublime courage and a brave army are capable of, when they have to contend against the worst that misfortune can do. One thing is certain: the Emperor showed himself a match for each emergency, and therefore fitted to prevent them all—if only he could have presumed no further upon Fortune, Glory, and Mankind. But hope, the merest inkling of success, elated him more than the severest setback could depress him. The indirect news, which he received almost at the same time as the other, of successes contrived by the Prince of Schwarzenberg on the sixteenth and seventeenth, revived his spirits. He had so often been loaded with Fortune’s favours in the most desperate of circumstances that he hoped, and was soon quite confident, that the Austrians—whom his ministers must have kept in touch with what was happening—would catch the inspiration of his genius; that they would take advantage of these successes to come to our aid; and that their manœuvres would extricate us and even give us a chance of snatching a victory of sorts, in which he could show to advantage. Along with such splendid talents, with a character so finely tempered, with a soul strong enough to dominate all misfortune, he had as great fondness as he had little need to indulge in self-deceit—the refuge of the weak.
His confidence, his boundless optimism, was greater still in the morning [November 25] when he received the Duke of Reggio’s report announcing the defeat of Tchitchagoff’s advance-guard. Under the command of General Pahlen, the Russians had ventured as far as Niemanitza, and had lost, the marshal reported, a lot of prisoners and all the equipment they had been foolish enough to bring to this side of Borissow.50 A great deal was made of this success, and we set out for Borissow at once. Detachments were sent to points above and below, where they were to reconnoitre the enemy’s position and create diversions at the crossings.
Marshal Reggio informed us of the return of General Corbineau, the head of his light cavalry. That general had just carried out a careful reconnaissance of the Beresina’s other bank, and had been forced by recent events to swim across the river.
These bits of information—but more especially the assurance that Kutusof was a long way behind us—put the Emperor at his ease. Confident that he was three days ahead of the Russian commander-in-chief, he knew for certain that the issue was in his hands, and that he was in a posture to face all dangers and surmount all difficulties.
Here, in order to clear up certain circumstances that bear on the disastrous crossing of the Beresina, it is necessary to enlarge on the events referred to just above.
General Corbineau, in command of the Sixth Cavalry Brigade of the Second Army Corps under the Duke of Reggio, had been detailed off with the Bavarian division near Gloubokoje. On the seventeenth, General Corbineau was ordered to make contact with the Moscow army, there having been no news of it for three days. He reached Plechnitsie on the twentieth. M. Tchernychev, with a thousand Cossacks, turned up there a short while afterwards, but withdrew for a mile or so. (On his march, quite by chance, M. Tchernychev had met and rescued General Wintzingerode and M. Narishkin, whom two guardsmen were taking to France as prisoners of war.) On the twenty-first the French brigade proceeded, with the intention of crossing the Beresina at Borissow.
On arriving at Zembin the general heard a cannonade, and was attacked at the same time by Cossacks. However, his rear-guard checked them sufficiently to let him keep moving. Further on, peasants told him that the Borissow bridge-head had been surprised, that the Polish general had not even defended the town, and that he had abandoned the bridge. This gave the Moldavian army control of both banks of the Beresina, safeguarded its communications with the Wittgenstein by the only bridge in the district, and put the French brigade between it and Tchernychev’s Cossacks.
Hearing that General Tchernychev was coming from Lepel, where he had been in communication with Count Wittgenstein, for whom he was probably acting as advance-guard, General Corbineau realized how vitally important it was to inform the Duke of Reggio of what had happened. Consequently, he made up his mind to take any risk in attempting to make contact with the Duke, rather than to seek his own safety elsewhere. He halted at the first defile on the Borissow road, and set watch on the roads from Minsk and Zembin that were occupied by Cossacks. By good luck the officers and patrols whom he had sent out managed to get hold of a peasant coming from Borissow, who had crossed the Beresina near Wesselowo. Chance favoured General Corbineau’s devotion. He decided on his tactics then and there. That night he ordered the guide to take him to the place where he had crossed the river; and at midnight, on the twenty-first, he crossed at the point where, though he did not know it at the time, he was going six days hence to show the French army a means of escape. (It was the very spot where Charles XII had crossed the Beresina, thus extricating what remained of his brave army after his Ukrainian expedition.) The current and the floating ice, difficult to avoid in the darkness, made him lose about seventy men, even though his brigade was in compact formation and marching eight abreast.
General Corbineau had successfully surmounted one stiff obstacle; but Tchitchagoff’s army, patrolling the river bank on horseback, faced him with other dangers. Fortune was kinder to him than he would have dared to hope. He avoided Plitsche, where the Russians were, and moved upon Kostritza. A Cossack regiment had just left there when the French advance-guard galloped in, at four in the morning of the twenty-second, and took possession of its equipment and servants. Continuing his march with the same good luck, General Corbineau came to a Russian nobleman’s residence which had a good bridge over the Natcha. It was the last obstacle he had to overcome before reaching the Smolensk road, where, to his great astonishment, he ran into the Second Corps a short distance from Kroupki.
If the French army had taken the same road as he did, what misfortune would have been avoided! How many lives would have been saved! But either the Duke of Reggio attached no particular importance to the details of the reports that General Corbineau made to him, and so did not pass them on to the Emperor, or else the Emperor did not consider it expedient to take General Corbineau’s route. The fact is that, if we had taken it, we should have gained two marches. By screening our movement with a mere feint towards Borissow, our passage of the Beresina could have been kept from the admiral’s notice altogether; and so all our losses would have been prevented. General Corbineau felt this so strongly that, not content with simply making a report to the marshal, he drew his attention once again, during the course of the twenty-third, to the advantages of the route he had taken. If the Emperor did have knowledge of all these circumstances, everything suggests that he must have been determined to carry out the general movement upon Borissow for the sake of putting Admiral Tchitchagoff wholly on the wrong scent. It is possible, of course, that Pahlen’s defeat and other considerations led the Emperor to believe that a straightforward attack would enable him to get control of the Borissow bridge, and thus to cross the river more easily. On the whole, though, the probability is that he knew nothing of General Corbineau’s suggestions at the time they were first made, since he never spoke of them, and even deplored the inconvenience of having to take the artillery and the baggage-train on such a long detour to reach Wesselowo.
The Emperor sent for General Corbineau on the twenty-third, but, as a result of one of those trifling occurrences which often have so much influence over great events, the general did not receive the order till the twenty-fifth. It is said that the Duke of Reggio’s aide-de-camp, M. Cramayel, pocketed the order and forgot about it.
By the time General Corbineau saw the Emperor, to whom he gave an account of all the circumstances of his adventure— and pointed out, moreover, that precious time was being lost by making a useless detour—the columns had already passed the road that ought to have been taken. The Emperor did not pause when this observation was first made. (He reverted to it later, and traced out General Corbineau’s route on a map; but it was too late. He then spoke of it to me, as well as to the Prince of Neuchâtel, and took occasion to complain that he never was told about things in time.) After chatting for a few moments with General Corbineau, he sent him to Wesselowo to prepare whatever was necessary in the way of bridge construction. Without tools, without iron, with virtually no material—he had to pull down houses to get wood—his zeal, aided by the tireless energy of Colonel Chauveau of the artillery, triumphed over all difficulties. After having arranged everything and put all to work, he reported to the Emperor at Staroï-Borissow. There His Majesty had stopped for a few hours to give orders [eleven P.M., November 25]. He had reconnoitred Niemanitza, the banks of the Beresina, the country above and below Borissow, and its environs as well. The Emperor and I had even gone on foot to the end of the remaining quarter of the bridge.
The Emperor had hesitated about where to cross the river. He still had his heart set on Minsk; the more especially, since he hoped that the Prince of Schwarzenberg would have made his way there, and that, by means of a double manoeuvre, the Russians would not have been given time either to remove or destroy the supplies. He therefore summoned the commissary officer who had been in charge there, so as to get exact information about the supplies likely to be available, the nature of the country, and recent events. He also made thorough enquiries about the route through Ukoloda; but the reports of General Corbineau, who arrived in person towards one o’clock, and further particulars from the Duke of Belluno about the extraordinary tactics of Wittgenstein, who restricted himself to following his movements, decided the Emperor. He sent General Corbineau back to hurry up the bridge construction, with orders to return immediately.... General Corbineau joined us again in the night, and the artillery, baggage and various army corps were directed to advance on to Wesselowo and Studianka. The last-named was a manor house, to which the Emperor proceeded with the Guard during the night. General Corbineau acted as guide.
The Emperor set off again two hours before daybreak [November 26] to join the Duke of Reggio at Wesselowo. He examined the banks of the Beresina, and placed strong artillery on the side we occupied, which dominated the other side across the whole stretch of marshland. This marshland bordered the river, and was a good five hundred yards wide. He had soundings taken in the ford. The river had subsided through freezing, and so there was no great depth except for a stretch of twenty or thirty feet, across which the horses had to swim to gain the other bank, which was rather steep. On our side the water only came up to the horses’ bellies. A number of light cavalrymen—our fearless Poles—crossed and recrossed without difficulty, and drove away some Cossacks prowling on the other bank, who never fired a shot until they had been driven beyond the marshland. Later on there was a small engagement between the advance-guard of Dombrowski’s division and a party of sharpshooters, infantry, hussars and Cossacks from Tchalitz’s division, who were in the houses of the village of Brillowo, but who retired.
Meanwhile active work was being carried on to complete the trestles begun by General Corbineau; and material was collected to make two bridges—one for artillery and one for infantry. Threats of crossing were kept up all along the line. The army mustered in strength at Borissow, and then made in succession for Wesselowo. The Duke of Reggio’s corps crossed the bridges before nightfall. General Dombrowski was wounded in a trifling engagement between his division and Tchalitz’s, which had been attacked in the rear and driven out of Brillowo. The Third (Ney) and Fifth (Poniatowski) Army Corps crossed during the night on their way to support the Duke of Reggio, who, it was then thought, was going to be vigorously attacked by the admiral.
The Emperor was at the bridge all day. His presence encouraged the sappers and the pontoon-men, who showed real devotion by getting into the water every other minute to mend a matchwood bridge which broke down under every gun-carriage and half-company of men. The Emperor inspected the marshland along the other bank of the river, and in the afternoon took careful observations of this position. It was long past nightfall when he returned to Studianka, where he slept on the twenty-sixth.
He was back at the bridge at daylight. The crossing proceeded slowly. So as not to impede the troops and artillery, stragglers and camp-followers were stopped from slipping over the bridge, as they would readily have done in the intervals. Wesselowo was thronged with them. The Guard and the transport-waggons crossed on the twenty-seventh, in the daytime, and took up a position at Brillowo, on the other bank.
While all this was going on, the Duke of Belluno, who was covering our manœuvre, was getting into position at mid-day in front of Wesselowo with the Daendels and Girard divisions; Partouneaux’s division, which he had left in front of Borissow, was to join him during the night. The inaction of the admiral, who had received orders from Kutusof to alter the direction of his march, baffled everyone. Nor was it any easier to understand the slow pace of Wittgenstein’s pursuit. How had it come about that the admiral, who had been able to observe our tactics for thirty-six hours past, had not burnt or dismantled the Borissow bridge, and thus had that, at least, off his mind? How was it that he had not made a quick sally with eighty or so of cannon, and knocked us to bits while we were crossing the river? Was he waiting for Wittgenstein? Had Kutusof joined forces with him? Was he manoeuvring in our rear? We lost ourselves in conjecture; and, it must be admitted, there was ample ground for doing so.
Before sending the transport-waggons into the marshland, I had personally examined all the paths through it in the morning. If the cold, which had diminished during the three preceding days, had not become very much sharper again the day before, we should not have saved a single gun-carriage, as the soil was miry and trembled beneath one’s feet. Although the path along which they were taken was constantly changed, the last ammunition waggons got bogged, because they cut or broke through the crust of hard frozen grass which served as a sort of bridge. The wheels had nothing to grip, and sank into the bottomless mud. It required all the perseverance, all the intelligence of which the men in charge of the convoys were capable, to deal with so awkward a situation. It can be said with truth that Fortune was never kinder to the Emperor than on these two days: had it not been for the intensity of the cold, he could not have saved a single cart.
The Emperor, who during the day had inspected Brillowo and the road leading thence to Borissow as well, returned to Wesselowo to view the Duke of Belluno’s position. His Majesty had personally supervised the Guard’s crossing of the Beresina, and did not return until a late hour to Brillowo—a miserable hamlet where headquarters had been established. It was ascertained from several marauders that Cossacks, from whom they had escaped, had appeared at Studianka in the afternoon and captured some stragglers. In the Emperor’s opinion, these were Wittgenstein’s advance-guard. Was he manœuvring in concert with the admiral to attack us on both sides? If so, it was too late for him to be successful....
Since the condition of the cavalry made it impossible for us to send out strong reconnoitring parties, we could not ascertain the enemy’s movements. Also, even though thus far our troops had crossed the Beresina without being troubled by a single rifle shot, and although everything suggested that the crossing would be completed with equal success, the Emperor’s attention was fixed on Kamen. It was along this road that the enemy could stop our march and bar our way with obstacles far more difficult to surmount than the Beresina. The Emperor had just learnt from a peasant, and the report was verified by some officers who had travelled along the Kamen road, that it was constructed on a large number of bridges built over countless small streams which traversed it; that one of these bridges, over an impassable swamp, was more than a quarter of a league long. A light put to a bunch of straw would be sufficient to deprive us of this means of retreat.
On the twenty-eighth, in the morning,51 the Duke of Reggio’s advance-guard was attacked so vigorously by Admiral Tchitchagoff that the Third and Fifth Corps had to come to his support. Several hours passed with honours more or less even. The Duke of Reggio was wounded. The Emperor, who was present at the engagement, at once replaced him with Marshal Elchingen. A charge of cuirassiers, carried out by Doumerc’s division, decided the affair in our favour. In a felled wood the Seventh Regiment, which had taken its place at the head of Berckheim’s brigade, charged upon a column of infantry in close formation and dispersed it. The resulting disorder forced the Russians to retreat, leaving behind more than fifteen hundred prisoners, whom I saw. These prisoners were all soldiers from the Moldavian army.
This check to the admiral would have decided the hazardous operation of crossing the Beresina wholly in our favour, but for one of those events which no plans made by a human being can take into account, as they are outside all reasonable probabilities. There can be no doubt that the rest of the army would have crossed the river without difficulty, and so been saved, if Partouneaux’s division, which had remained at Borissow and which was to join the Duke of Belluno during the night, had not in the darkness mistaken the way where the roads from Studianka and Wesselowo diverge. General Partouneaux and a party of staff officers, thinking that they were on the right road and that the Duke of Belluno was ahead of them, were marching confidently at the head of the division so as to be able to observe in advance the position it would take up, when they found themselves in the midst of the Russians, and were taken prisoner. The enemy, warned ahead of time of the mistake these officers were making—and the division after them—had arranged matters in such a way that they would be allowed to advance. The general of division was captured; the division itself surrendered, acting under orders of Generals Le Camus and Blanmont. These particulars were learnt afterwards: at the time, what was a consequence of disastrous imprudence was considered to be due to stupidity and cowardice.52
THE DUCHESS OF VICENZA
Portrait by Cérard
From the collection of Mme. la Comtesse Gérard de Moustier
The arrival of this division’s rear-guard battalion, which had taken the right road, leaving Staroï-Borissow last, and had caught up with the Duke of Belluno during the night, increased the uneasiness to which the division’s delay had already given rise. This battalion had seen and heard nothing, and had found the road free. Marshal Victor did not doubt but that the division had got lost during the night, and would join him at daybreak. Everyone was constantly expecting to see it appear; and uncertainty ceased only about nine o‘clock when Wittgenstein’s force, which had been drawn up facing the Duke of Belluno since the evening before, was seen to be preparing for an attack. Even then, the rear-guard battalion had arrived without difficulty; no sounds of fighting had been heard; the road, according to a reconnoitring party which had returned, was still free. Thus, no one imagined that a division commanded by experienced generals could conceivably have surrendered without putting up a fight. Even supposing that General Partouneaux had been attacked by the main body of Wittgenstein’s forces, there was nothing to prevent him from striking out, with his infantry and cavalry, for the river bank; that route was still open. Was he still fighting? The battle that was about to begin would show him that they were waiting for him, and would serve him as a useful diversion. It was on this supposition that, far from speeding up the passage of the troops already delayed to await the missing division, reinforcements, including even a detachment from the Guard, were sent back to support Marshal Belluno. He was vigorously attacked about eleven o’clock while we were engaged in fighting Tchitchagoff.
The Emperor did not hear of the surrender of Partouneaux’s division until one o’clock. The notable success scored against the admiral compensated somewhat for this misfortune, which was kept as secret as possible at main headquarters, but which was made known at the headquarters of the Duke of Belluno, who at the time was severely pressed by Wittgenstein’s army. None spared himself in the effort to hold this position at least until nightfall; but at last the marshal was compelled to cross the Beresina in order to save his corps from total destruction.
It is impossible to conceive the appearance of the village of Wesselowo and that bank of the Beresina after his withdrawal—everywhere troops, stragglers, refugees, women and children. The camp-followers, who were unwilling to abandon their waggons, had not been permitted to cross the river—the bridges, and the paths through the fields, had been reserved since the evening before for the passage of the Duke of Belluno and the troops detailed to support him. The Emperor hoped up to the last moment that the position could be held until dark, in which case everything would have been saved. But when a retreat was decided on, the Wesselowo bank at once became a scene of horror, of indescribable carnage, especially when the Russians’ repeated attacks on the last troops to cross the river had driven the crowd of non-combatants to the river’s edge. Everyone then rushed the bridges, which were soon broken down, as much by the disorder as by the fugitives’ weight. We Frenchmen, unhappy and helpless spectators of these scenes of horror and cruelty, were able from our side of the river to gauge roughly the number of the victims of Russian barbarism. Ten thousand lives were lost. This estimate of the number of unarmed stragglers, camp-followers, refugees, women and children is not exaggerated.
As may well be imagined, there was little inclination to spare General Partouneaux, to whose surrender this misfortune could largely be attributed. The Emperor and the General Staff, the marshals and officers, the whole army, were more than severe in their judgment on him. “His lack of foresight,” everyone agreed, “is unpardonable. The surrender of his division without a fight is shameful.” The word “cowardice” was used, and his surrender was compared with Marshal Elchingen’s brave determination.
“When d‘Assas faced certain death,” the Emperor said, “he cried: Follow me, men of Auvergne! If generals lack the courage to put up a fight, they might at least allow their grenadiers to do so. A drummer could have saved his comrades from dishonour by sounding the charge. A canteen-woman could have saved the division by shouting, ‘Sauve qui peut!’ instead of surrendering.”
There is no doubt that, apart even from the very fair chance we had of getting across the Beresina before the enemy started to attack, this surrender had a powerful and unfortunate influence on the whole course of events; and that the Duke of Belluno, with one division too few in his hands, was thereby put at great disadvantage in defending his position.
While all this took place on what was now the farther bank of the Beresina, the First and Fourth Corps were moving upon Kamen. That, along with our success against the admiral, was some consolation for the day’s disasters; and the Emperor was greatly comforted to feel sure that our progress, which could so easily have been stopped by the burning of a few bridges, would meet with no further impediment.... Whatever was left of the artillery and the carriages was also going on towards Kamen. But headquarters were maintained at Brillowo for one day more, the twenty-eighth, so as to oversee the reorganization of the corps that had been hard hit, and to set a good example to the troops. Their morale had crumbled visibly under the strain of the past few days.
On the following day, the twenty-ninth, the Emperor proceeded to Kamen, where General Lanskoï, sent there by the admiral, had appeared about noon. He had surrounded a house in which were the Duke of Reggio, General Legrand and other wounded generals and officers, as well as two officers from the Emperor’s personal suite sent ahead to arrange accommodation. 53 All the servants were assembled, with a number of soldiers who had gone ahead of the main army; and this handful of brave men sufficed to drive away the detachment of Cossacks. Finding that he was unable to capture the occupants of the house, Lanskoï bombarded it. Two persons close to the marshal were wounded. When our advance-guard arrived on the scene, the Russians decided to rest on their laurels for that day.
As the peasant had reported, and various officers confirmed, at a distance of half a league out of Brillowo, and for a stretch of about two leagues, the road is a causeway through a marsh. The way is so insecure that the greater part of it is constructed of wooden bridges, two of them nearly a quarter-league in length. Numerous others cross the little streams, which traverse the marsh here, there and everywhere. How could so easy a means of impeding our progress have been overlooked by the Russians? Six Cossacks with torches would have sufficed to cut us off from this means of retreat.
None of the deductions to be made from this strange lack of foresight on the part of the enemy escaped the Emperor. He was all the more infuriated by General Partouneaux’s manifestation of that same lack, which, as he said, had cost us so dear, when he reflected how easy it would have been, but for this, to make the crossing of the Beresina one of the most perfect and illustrious military operations ever undertaken. He added that the Russian generals had not yet carried out a single genuinely military operation, not one useful manoeuvre, without its having been worked out for them by their government. The Emperor’s opinion of Wittgenstein, whom he had considered the most tenacious, and, during the Dwina campaign, the most capable of the Russian generals, steadily declined in consequence of his muddled tactics, his indecision and the deliberate slowness of his operations in order not to risk being isolated from the admiral. He had been saying ever since Polotsk that, given the circumstances in which we were placed, we might consider ourselves lucky in not having more capable adversaries....
On the way from Brillowo to Kamen two of the Emperor’s transport-mules, which had fallen behind the others, were stolen while their driver was some little way off. No one knew who had got them. I mention this insignificant fact because, in spite of the prevailing misery, it was the only incident of the kind that took place during the campaign. The respect in which the Emperor was held, the devotion to his person, was such that no one belonging to his suite, not even one of his servants, was ever insulted. Not one murmur against the Emperor was heard in the whole course of this disastrous retreat. Soldiers were dying by the roadside, but I never heard a single grumble; and my testimony in this respect is worth something, because after Wereia I always marched on foot, sometimes with the Emperor, sometimes in front of him, sometimes behind him, but always amongst groups of men, in uniform, without my riding coat and wearing my full-dress hat. Any discontent amongst the men would have manifested itself most readily, no doubt, in the presence of a general in full uniform. The individual behaviour of these unfortunate soldiers, who, lacking all the necessities of life, froze to death by the roadside, often astonished me, I admit; and I was not alone in admiring it.
From Kamen we proceeded to Plechnitsie, where the General Staff slept on the thirtieth. The Beresina had swept away a large number of our strays and stragglers, who had been looting everything and thus depriving the brave fellows who remained in the ranks of the supplies which they so badly needed. However, that was no gain, for, after the crossing, bands of irregulars formed in full view of everyone, with the object of recruiting still more stragglers. All that remained of the First Corps was its colour-guard and a few commissioned and noncommissioned officers surrounding their marshal. The Fourth was worse than weakened, and the Third, which had fought so valiantly against the Moldavian army, had been reduced by more than half its strength after that affair. The Poles were in no better case. Our cavalry, apart from the Guard, no longer existed except in the form of parties of stragglers, which, although the Cossacks and peasants attacked them savagely, overran the villages on our flanks. Hunger proved an irresistible force, and the need to live, to find shelter against the cold, made men indifferent to every sort of danger. The evil spread also to the Duke of Reggio’s corps—now joined on to Marshal Elchingen’s —and even to the Duke of Belluno’s divisions, which formed the rear-guard.
Cavalry officers, who had been mustered into a company under the command of generals,54 dispersed also in a few days, so wretched were they, and so tortured by hunger. Those who had a horse to feed were forced, if they did not want to lose it, to keep some distance away, as there were no supplies at all along the road. The Guard also lost more stragglers after Kamen; but this body of men—who of course grumbled a little, though always under their breath, and who got whatever supplies were going—still made an excellent impression by virtue of their general appearance, their vigour and their martial air. These veterans cheered up as soon as they caught a glimpse of the Emperor; and the battalion each day on guard-duty kept up an astonishing standard of smartness.
Thinking of the wonderful smartness of the Guard puts me in mind of the contrast between our men from Moscow and the troops from the Dwina [Victor and Oudinot], at the time when we joined forces with them. Our men, emaciated, bloodless, grimy as chimney-sweeps, enfeebled, were like spectres, although vigorous enough on the march and full of dash under fire. The others, less exhausted, better fed, less smoked by bivouac fires, seemed to us like men belonging to another race. They were alive, we were shadows. The contrast in the horses was even more striking. The artillery of those two corps was superb. The generals and officers were well mounted, had all their equipment, and had been enjoying all the good things that can be got on campaign. At Wesselowo the officers of the Emperor’s General Staff—Duroc and myself, for instance—made more than one visit to the Duke of Reggio’s kitchen, so great had been the privations to which all ranks in the army had been subjected. In the engagement against the Moldavian army, our worn-out fellows from Moscow were not behind their comrades as far as courage was concerned. In fact, as was said every day, our soldiers had more courage than strength.
When we reached Kamen [Plechnitsie?] the Emperor spoke again with me about his journey to France. He did not anticipate any further obstacles to prevent the army from reaching Wilna, where he considered that it would be as good as saved, and sure of a chance to recuperate. He hoped to come upon his despatches from Paris within forty-eight hours, and to get news of the troops which ought to be coming from Wilna to meet us. We were almost in communication with the Bavarians. The arrival of the Polish Cossacks, whom he took to be only a few marches away, was his chief concern. He continued to count on the Prince of Schwarzenberg’s advance, which he hoped would divert the enemy’s attention from our retreat, and give us a chance to take up a position in cantonments. He expected frequent attacks from Cossacks, but regarded them as unimportant, since our latest stragglers had organized themselves into powerful squads, under leaders, to repel them and to awe the peasants. It was common enough to see one of these small detachments of fifteen or twenty men chasing one hundred and fifty or two hundred Cossacks in front of them. The Emperor, then, considered himself to be out of reach of Wittgenstein and Kutusof; and the admiral could only follow along in our tracks—that is, unless he made a detour which would lose him two marches.
On December 1, headquarters were at Staïki. We had not hitherto had such a bad lodging. Staïki was nicknamed “Miserowo.” The Emperor and the chief-of-staff each had a little niche seven or eight feet square. All the rest of the staff were crowded together in another room. It froze so hard that everyone sought shelter in this cubby-hole. We had to lie on our sides so as to save space. We were packed so tight together that a pin could not have been dropped between us.
Going out in the darkness, someone trod on the foot of M. de Bausset, who had been following us in a carriage ever since Moscow, suffering horribly from gout. The wretched cripple, suddenly awakened by the sharp pain that this clumsiness caused him, began to shout: “It’s terrible!—it’s murder!” Those who were awake shouted with laughter, which awoke the sleepers; and everyone—serious and lighthearted alike, the unfortunate sick man himself—paid tribute to this momentary nonsense with roars of laughter. I describe this scene to show how man is capable of accustoming himself to the most wretched circumstances; and how, just as the most trivial thing will distract him, so he can witness the greatest misfortunes almost unmoved.
After crossing the Beresina, our faces were less careworn. For the first time, Poland seemed delightful to everyone. Wilna had become a promised land, a safe port that would shelter us from all storms, and the end of all our troubles. The past seemed a dream; and the prospect of a better lot already made us forget, almost, the disasters that had come upon us. Weariness, the privations of the moment, the sight of poor devils dying every instant of cold and exhaustion—all this counted for little with the naturally gay and careless French soldier. Danger makes men egotists. Those who had survived were accustomed to seeing pain and destruction all around them. The strongest characters refused to succumb to misfortune, and tried by their calm to strengthen others who were weaker. We suffered terribly, of course; we had before us a constant spectacle of fearful misery, of overwhelming distress; but the instinct of self-preservation, the feeling of national pride, and the desire to uphold national honour prevented us from taking full account of this excess of adversity. Our spirits were exalted; and we did not know, or rather did not wish to believe, all that subsequently transpired. Yesterday’s dangers, then, like to-day’s and to-morrow’s, meant no more to our imagination than risks in a battle constantly renewed. Since we were all in it together, we were generally gay, careless, even full of raillery, as one is the day before, or the day after, or the very day of, a battle; c’est la guerre. Unquestionably, despite our sufferings, our headquarters were in as good a humour as were the Russian headquarters.
We were approaching Wilna; we were in Poland, and still no despatches had arrived. The Emperor could not understand this delay, as we were very near the Bavarian Corps, then stationed at Vileika. This corps, under the command of General Wrède, should have left the Gloubokoje district and advanced on to Bunilowice after the Second Corps’ retreat; but it had returned after the nineteeenth, and was defending Wilna. This lack of letters from France, and especially the thought of the probable effect there, as well as in Europe, of the absence of all news about the army, was of greater concern to the Emperor than anything else. He prepared a bulletin [the famous Bulletin 29] giving an account of the course events had taken, and of our latest disasters. He said to me:
“I shall tell everything. It is better that these particulars should be known through me than through private letters. Full details now will mitigate the effect of the disasters which have to be announced later to the nation.”
Headquarters were established on the second at Selitche, almost as uncomfortable as the day before. But we found a store of potatoes. It is impossible to describe the joy that everyone felt at being able to eat his fill. The cold was so intense that bivouacking was no longer supportable. Bad luck for those who fell asleep by a camp-fire! Furthermore, disorganization was perceptibly gaining ground in the Guard. One constantly found men who, overcome by the cold, had been forced to drop out and had fallen to the ground, too weak or too numb to stand. Ought one to help them along—which practically meant carrying them? They begged one to let them alone. There were bivouacs all along the road—ought one to take them to a camp-fire? Once these poor wretches fell asleep, they were dead. If they resisted the craving for sleep, another passer-by would help them along a little farther, thus prolonging their agony for a short while but not saving them; for in this condition the drowsiness engendered by cold is irresistibly strong. Sleep comes inevitably; and to sleep is to die. I tried in vain to save a number of these unfortunates. The only words they uttered were to beg me, for the love of God, to go away and let them sleep. To hear them, one would have thought this sleep was their salvation. Unhappily, it was a poor wretch’s last wish; but at least he ceased to suffer, without pain or agony. Gratitude, and even a smile, was imprinted on his discoloured lips. What I have related about the effects of extreme cold, and of this kind of death by freezing, is based on what I saw happen to thousands of individuals. The road was covered with their corpses.
The Emperor stopped for a little while at the crossing of the Villia, in the midst of a bodyguard and on an eminence overlooking a fairly wide reach of the road. I stood apart to watch the debris of our army file past. It was from here that I saw what stragglers had reported for several days past, and what we had refused to believe. Cossacks, tired of killing our stragglers, or of taking prisoners whom they were obliged to march to the rear, thus depriving themselves for a time of the chance of daily booty, were robbing everyone they came across. They were taking their clothes, if they had decent ones, and sending them away practically naked. I have seen cases in which they gave in exchange inferior clothing which they had taken from someone else, or from some poor wretch dead by the roadside. Every one of these Cossacks had a pile of old clothes—some under their saddles like pads, others over them like cushions. They never had ridden such high horses before. I spoke with some of the unfortunate stragglers whom I had seen robbed quite near the bridge, and with others who had been stripped farther away. They confirmed the particulars I have given, and added that the Cossacks, when no superior officers were about, drove them along in front of them like a herd of cattle.
On the third, we reached Molodetchna, where fourteen despatches from Paris were received all at once, as well as despatches from all along the line and the Duke of Bassano’s news about the Austrian advance.... He had no encouraging information to give about the levies of Polish cavalry. Cossacks were out of the question. The Duchy was exhausted—particu—larly its funds; and the Emperor, whose object was to spend as little as possible, was for this reason deprived of the Cossacks on whom he had been counting, and whom he had daily been expecting to meet.
Lithuania had no more resources than the Duchy. Laid waste by war, it was barely able to fulfil its first quota of troops. We lacked Lithuanian Cossacks, as we lacked Cossacks from the Duchy, as we lacked all the other supports on which the Emperor had counted. Henceforth, it was clear that neither Wilna nor even the Niemen would be the end of the army’s retreat, and therefore the end of our troubles.
On that same day, three Russian peasants threw the whole transport section into a panic. However, when a number of infantrymen rallied, they made off, after looting two carriages belonging to generals. As for the Cossacks, they never appeared where there were five or six bayonets near each other.
The Emperor was very busy reading his despatches from France, and everyone was glad to have news from home. In Paris there had been some uneasiness about the interruption of news from the army, but no conception of the extent of our disasters. The memory of the Emperor’s exploits maintained confidence, and caused such a sense of security that the sensation produced by this long silence had been less marked, less disturbing, than there had been reason to fear.
The Emperor instructed me to send M. Anatole de Montesquiou, the Prince of Neuchâtel’s aide-de-camp, to Paris to give word of him verbally to the Empress. His object was to prepare public opinion, by the details that this officer would give, for the bulletin on which he had been occupied since we crossed the Beresina.
The despatches from Paris revived the topic of the Malet affair. The Emperor always joked about the capture of the Minister and of the Prefect of Police. He appeared to be quite satisfied with the state of public opinion since this conspiracy, particularly during the interruption of news from the army. He was satisfied with all the details about the administration, with everything in general, and said as much to the Prince of Neuchâtel, who repeated his remarks to me that same evening.
The Emperor was occupied with the famous bulletin. He was still determined to hide none of his disasters, so as to impress them on everyone before his arrival. Then, he said, his presence would both calm and reassure public opinion. The more overwhelming our disasters were, and the more they were multiplied with every day that passed and every step we took, the more indispensable became his return to France. He summoned me one evening, and repeated to me what I had already heard from the Prince of Neuchâtel.
“In the existing state of affairs,” he said to me, “I can only hold my grip on Europe from the Tuileries.”
As usual, however, in spite of any remarks I might make to him, he let there be no doubt that the army was to take up its position at Wilna, and would have its winter quarters there. He counted on being able to set off in less than forty-eight hours; as soon, in fact, as he was in contact with the troops coming from Wilna, whereafter, in his opinion, the army would run no more serious risks. He was eager to start so as to forestall the news of our disasters. It is to be noted that, for the most part, nothing was known about them. Confidence in his genius, and the habit of seeing him triumph over even greater obstacles, were such that public opinion tended to minimize rather than exaggerate whatever news of our disasters was received. The Emperor was in a hurry to start. He thought that communications would be easier and surer at once rather than a few days later, because Russian partisans would not yet have had time to try attacks from the rear, as they certainly would do while the army was getting into position. He allowed me to make certain preliminary arrangements so that nothing should delay his departure when once it was decided upon.
The Emperor again asked me whether I thought he ought to give command of the army to the Viceroy or to the King of Naples. I said, as I had in previous conversations, that, with all due respect to Murat’s courage, Prince Eugène was the more popular with the army and enjoyed more of its confidence. I added that the King of Naples, though a hero on the battlefield, was generally thought to possess neither the force of character, the sense of order nor the foresight necessary to save the remains of the army and reorganize it; that, without for a moment overlooking his services at Borodino and on other occasions, he had been accused of having an insatiable appetite for glory, of having instigated His Majesty to undertake the Moscow expedition, and of having lost the magnificent force of cavalry which started on the campaign. It was no longer a question of charging the enemy, I told him; the present need was to keep the army alive so as to reorganize it, and to hold the enemy in check.
The Emperor seemed to find my observations sound. He even subscribed to the opinion generally held about the King, but pointed out that his rank made it impossible for him to be put under the orders of the Viceroy. Thus he was obliged to give the preference to Murat, who would have left the army if the supreme command had been entrusted to Prince Eugène. He added that the Prince of Neuchatel took the same view; that he was leaving him to see to everything, and that he, Berthier, preferred the King, whose rank, age, and reputation would be more imposing in the eyes of the marshals, and whose proved courage counted for something where the Russians were concerned. Certain other remarks which the Emperor had made formerly, and which I recollected because they cropped up again in the course of this conversation, gave me the idea (at least I fancied I could trace such a thought) that he would prefer to leave to his brother-in-law the honour of rallying the army, and that he did not care about his step-son having credit for this further achievement in the eyes of the army and of France. With all his greatness of character, this distrust of his relatives—and, in general, of everyone who had acquired personal renown—was entirely in keeping with the Emperor’s general attitude.
He spoke to me again about the persons he would take with him. His choice was limited to myself, who was to start with him, to Duroc and Count Lobau, who were to follow after him, and to M. Wonsowicz, a Polish officer who had been through the whole campaign, a man of proved courage and devotion. It was arranged that the Emperor’s other aides-de-camp and the officers of his suite should follow him in succession: each week the Prince of Neuchâtel was to send two of his orderly officers along to him. He was to have an escort only as far as Wilna. This would be provided by the Neapolitan cavalry, which was attached to Loison’s division. Beyond Wilna he would travel under the name of the Duke of Vicenza.
I gave orders, therefore, to the post-stages, under the pretext of making sure that there were facilities for the use of despatch officers. Our troops soon disorganized these relays, however, and it was necessary to make other arrangements by sending ahead several transport detachments whose horses would serve our purpose. Our situation was such that the smallest accidents were liable to put obstacles, even insurmountable obstacles, in our way, unless steps were taken long in advance. For instance, we should not have been able to make use of our relays to get along the road, which was like a sheet of glass, if I had not kept under lock and key a sack of coal for the purpose of forging shoes for the horses which were to pull us.
We could do our smithing only at night because the supply-waggons were on the move for twelve or fifteen hours each day. The cold was so severe, even by the forge fire, that the farriers could only work in gloves—and then they had to rub their hands every minute or so to keep them from freezing. These particulars, quite insignificant in any other circumstances, give some idea of the causes of our failure, and of all that would have had to been foreseen in order to avoid it. Our failure, for the most part, was due rather to such unconsidered trifles than to exhaustion or the enemy’s attacks.
The Emperor was well satisfied with the particulars transmitted to him by the Duke of Bassano regarding the tactics that he had just instructed Prince Schwarzenberg to carry out. Generally speaking, he was pleased with everything this minister had done and ordered whilst communications were interrupted. He did not, however, refer with the same satisfaction to what had been done in regard to raising the levies he had ordered in Poland. In this respect, he complained a great deal about M. de Pradt and about all his agents at Wilna and Warsaw. The promised Cossacks had not even been recruited—a fact which upset the Emperor the more in that he had been openly attributing all his defeats since Smolensk to the lack of light cavalry.... The news from France, on the other hand, was a real consolation. The Emperor spoke of this with the utmost satisfaction, and with high praise for the Empress’s conduct, for her prudence, and for the attachment that she had shown to him.
“These difficult circumstances,” he went on, “form her power of judgment, and give her assurance and far-sightedness which will win the nation’s heart. She is just the woman I needed, kind, good, loving as German women are. She doesn’t busy herself with intrigues. She has a sense of order, and concerns herself only with me and her son.”
On the fifth, headquarters were at Smorgoni. There a member of the Wilna government and Count van Hogendorp, aide-de-camp to the Emperor and governor of the town, awaited him. The Emperor interviewed them, and sent them off again at once. He then sent for me to take the dictation of his final orders:
Smorgoni, December 5, noon.
The Emperor leaves at ten o’clock to-night.
He is to be accompanied by two hundred men from his Guard. Beyond the Smorgoni-Oschmiana relay station, as far as Oschmiana, by the infantry regiment that halts for the night fifteen miles from here; orders to this effect to be given by General van Hogendorp.
One hundred and fifty good horses belonging to the Guard to be sent to a point one league from Oschmiana. Staff officers from the infantry regiment and the squadron of lancers from the Guard to be placed in relays between Smorgoni and Oschmiana.
The Neapolitans, who are bivouacking to-night between Wilna and Oschmiana, to arrange for one hundred horses to be at Miedniki and one hundred at Rumsziki.
General van Hogendorp ... to instruct the Duke of Bassano to wait upon the Emperor immediately at Smorgoni.
The Emperor to start with the Duke of Vicenza in His Majesty’s carriage; M. Wonsowicz in front, a footman behind....
The Master of Horse to notify the King of Naples, the Viceroy and the marshals to be at headquarters at seven o’clock.
The Master of Horse to get from the chief-of-staff an order to proceed to Paris with his secretary Rayneval,55 his couriers and his servants.
The Emperor then repeated what he had already said in the morning ... that the Prince of Schwarzenberg was on the move forward ... that various regiments were arriving at Wilna and others on the Niemen; that the Wilna shops, and even the Kowno shops, were well supplied, and that the troopers, once they got hold of food and clothing, would soon rejoin the ranks. There could be no doubt, in his opinion, that the retreat would be over when there was no more privation.
Having tried on previous occasions to explain the real state of affairs to the Emperor, and what I foresaw would come to pass, I listened this time without making any reply.
“Why don’t you answer? ... What is your opinion, then?”
“I have grave doubts, Sire, as to whether the Niemen will be the end of disorder and as to whether the army will rally there. All the fresh troops ought to be sent to take up their positions wherever Your Majesty thinks we can really stop, since contact with our disorganized forces will spread disorder amongst them, and thus lose us everything.”
“So you think that Wilna ought to be evacuated?”
“Unquestionably, Sire, and as soon as possible.”
“You make me laugh! The Russians are not in a fit state to proceed there now, and you know as well as I do that our stragglers don’t give a f———for the Cossacks.”
The Emperor was convinced that more supplies could be got together in eight days at Wilna to resist the Russians than they would be able to collect in a month. In his mind’s eye he saw Poland arming all her peasants to drive away the Cossacks, the French army tripling in size because it had food and clothing, and because its reinforcements were now within reach, whereas the Russians were leaving theirs farther and farther behind. The Emperor, as at Moscow, refused to take into account the fact that the climate favoured the Russians more than us. Already he saw our cantonments, even our advance-posts protected by the Poles, who were acclimatized and ready, with infantry as well as cavalry, to defend their country and their homes. He even saw our infantry, when once it had eaten its fill, less than two weeks hence, braving the cold and chasing away the Cossacks. The Emperor seemed to have no doubts about it all; and if I failed to alter his opinion by frankly expressing an opposite one, at least my doing so did not irritate him, since he discussed the situation for a long while with me.
The Prince of Neuchatel was greatly upset at having to remain behind, although the Emperor, in accordance with his wishes, had made the King of Naples commander-in-chief. Berthier was consoled by the thought that he would be able to be of real service to the Emperor by remaining with the army, and that the presence of someone accustomed to being obeyed was necessary for the maintenance of good morale. His devotion and attachment to the Emperor were heartfelt. He, too, saw how many difficulties there would be in rallying the army, not because of any lack of fresh troops (he had enough at his disposal, and the Guard still formed a satisfactory basis for reorganization), but because the Emperor’s departure, which otherwise he believed to be necessary, would provide a pretext for disorder, which might well complete the process of disorganization. At bottom, however, he was far from foreseeing what actually happened, although the troops from the Dwina and Belluno’s men were going to pieces more every day.
The King of Naples, the Viceroy, the Marshals, the Dukes of Elchingen, Treviso, Istria and Danzig, the Prince of Eckmühl —all of them with the exception of the Duke of Belluno, who was in command of the rear-guard—arrived in turn. They constituted a sort of council to which the Emperor announced his determination to go to Paris. His manner was that of someone submitting a project for their opinion on it; and they were unanimous in urging him to go.