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ОглавлениеCHAPTER 30
BORODINO
Borodino, a small town, is situated on the banks of the river Kalatsha, some 120 kilometres from Moscow. After the battle of Smolensk, Napoléon led the Grande Armée, now standing at some 130,000 men with 580 guns, and marched on Borodino.
On September 5th Napoléon, mounting his horse Marengo (a present from the Ottoman Sultan), flanked by a detachment of the Imperial Guard, arrived to the Russian Schivardino redoubt, about five kilometres south west of Borodino. While Davout stormed and secured the redoubt, the French troops were debouching on the Smolensk-Moscow post road. On September 6th Napoléon, leading the vanguard, arrived on the slopes facing the Russians. He was feeling unwell with a recurring case of dysuria, which made it very difficult for him to urinate. He had also come down with a severe cold and a feverish chill; this however would not impede his faculties, for he had finally forced the Russians to do battle. Now was his opportunity to win a decisive victory and force the enemy to accept his peace terms.
He ordered his scouts to conduct a thorough reconnaissance of the Russian position, and then returned to camp to find out that a package just received from Paris had been awaiting him. He beamed as he opened the velvet wrappings and began toying with an ivory sceptre. He called Marshal Berthier and his staff officers and generals to come and share in his joy; “Gentlemen, if my son were a little older, he would be here with me in person.” Then he placed the portrait on a chair outside his tent in order to be seen by the Imperial Guard.
On the night of the 6th of September, Napoléon stayed up late dictating orders of the day and the proclamation to the troops. When he woke up at four, he asked “Have the Russians retreated again?”
“No, sire,” replied Berthier, his chief of staff, “You could see their campfires burning across the valley.”
“Well, all is well, all fairs well,” answered the Emperor, “this is the hour we have been waiting for.” He then mounted his horse and rode on to reconnoitre the Russian positions, accompanied by a cavalry detachment of the Imperial Guard.
The terrain of the battlefield was not what Napoléon had wished for. On both flanks of his deployed army stood woodland areas, which made outflanking movements and rolling up the enemy an almost impossible task. The terrain of the battle ground was partially covered with shrubs and trees, making it difficult for the cavalry to veer and attack the enemy’s rear. Kutuzov’s deployment of troops, artillery and cavalry stretched across a front four kilometres wide from north to south, from Borodino to the high ground near the Utitsa Village on the Old Smolensk-Moscow post road. The river Kalatsha, serpentine through battleground terrain, ran parallel south of Borodino, then continued north-east of the town, joining the confluence of the Moskva River, forming a natural barrier.
The terrain of the battle field was not what Napoleon had wished for, but he had won battles before when the terrain favoured the enemy. At Austerlitz, the Austro-Russian armies, commanded by Kutuzov and accompanied by Tzar Alexander and the Austrian Emperor Francis, occupied the Pratzen by 9:00 am; the Pratzen Heights were recaptured. Kutuzov’s attempts to recapture the heights failed; at 3:00 pm the French, batteries now firmly in control of the Heights, pounded the enemy below, pulverising their ranks. The attempt to escape the unleashed hell failed and retreat became an all-out rout. By 4:00 pm Napoléon had won a decisive victory.
At Borodino Kutuzov deployed his army in three formations; centre, right wing and left wing. On the far-right wing, at the bend formed by the confluence of the Kalatsha and Moskva rivers stood the Cossack cavalry and Baggovut’s army, proceeded by Tolstoy and Dokhturov’s corps, separated by Gorki village. Between the centre and right wing stood Osterman’s corps and behind him Barclay’s army of some 70,000 men (holding the high ground protected by marsh work) forming a great redoubt. In the centre, Kutuzov and Raevsky in support (during the battle, Dokhturov veers to the centre to back up Raevsky’s corps). On the left flank facing the village of Utitsa and its neighbouring heights stood Tuchkov and Borozdin’s corps, supported by Bagration’s army corps of some 30,000 men.
Eugene’s Italian 4th corps faced the Russian right flank; the centre, Ney’s 3rd corps with Junot’s 8th corps and Davout’s 1st corps. On the French right flank facing the Russian left wing, Prince Poniatowski’s Polish 5th corps. The Imperial Guard stood in reserve in the centre while the Guard’s cavalry took position behind Davout’s corps and Murat’s cavalry protected the French right wing. Napoléon established his headquarters in the centre with the Imperial Guard. This how the battle-field of Borodino looked like on the 7th of September.
Before he finally decided to make a stand and fight, Kutuzov was criticised by Clausewitz in his account of the 1812 campaign: “Kutuzov is certain not to have fought a losing battle at Borodino where he did not expect to win. Only the clamour of the court, of the army of the public forced him finally to make a stand.”
Two days before the battle, Napoléon received ominous news from Spain: Marmont was defeated by Wellington near Salamanca; but the Emperor was determined to achieve a decisive victory; he told Berthier, “First things first…today we will crush the Russians at Borodino…we will deal with the mediocre Wellington later.”
On the eventful morning of September 7th, Napoléon’s soldiers and generals were preparing themselves for battle. Many of them were veterans of earlier campaigns, proudly bearing their wounds and scars; now they were to vanquish ‘the anti-Christ’, as Napoléon called Kutuzov and his army. Napoléon’s aide de Camp Rapp had sustained 22 wounds; Berthier, Ney, Junot, Bessiéres and others, practically all his marshals, had been wounded in battle, some of them four or five times. And yet, despite the rigours of the campaign, they were determined to vanquish their enemy; although doubts amongst some were expressed in their diaries. A German captain wrote, “Even if the Emperor succeeds in taking Moscow, it would be impossible to hold the capital, if a crushing blow is not dealt to the Russian army. But who would not have dared to gamble, had he been given the choice?”
The armies of the opposing combatants stood at almost equal numbers. Napoléon had 130,000 men with 580 guns. Kutuzov ha 140,000 men and 600 guns in the fortified redoubt.
Napoléon established his headquarters of operation in front of the Guard, on a mound a kilometre from the left wing Russian redoubt by Utitsa. At dawn before the battle, the Emperor was awake, standing in front of his tent. “Vive L’Empereur!” resounded the cry of the Guard. Napoléon, who had his proclamation written the night before, read to his troops, arrayed in battle formation:
“Soldiers! This is the decisive battle you have been waiting for; let posterity honour your names; your victory will provide abundant supplies and secure warm winter quarters, you will be remembered for generations to come as the brave soldiers who stormed the walls of Moscow and captured the capital.”
At 5:30 am on September 7th Napoléon ordered the main French batteries immediately ahead of him to open fire; 100 French guns opened a deafening salvo against General Bagration’s positions. At once the heavier and longer-range Russian guns struck back. Napoléon realised the shorter range of his guns and ordered their batteries to be moved forward to within 1500 metres of the Russian positions.
The Russians were entrenched on the banks of the river Moskva and its confluence with the river Kalatsha, with their centre resting north of the village of Borodino. Davout’s plan for a wide, outflanking sweep to the south and around to turn the Russian left wing, anchored by Utitsa Redoubt, was rejected. Instead Napoléon proposed to storm Kutuzov left wing and ordered his dispositions accordingly. Kutuzov had meanwhile established his headquarters at Gorki on the Smolensk-Moscow road. Initially the French made good progress; on the French right flank facing the Russian left wing, Prince Poniatowski’s Polish cavalry stormed and secured Utitsa and part of the neighbouring woods. While Eugene de Beauharnais’ Italian corps advanced on the centre and captured Borodino, Davout’s 1st corps advanced on the Semyonovskaya sector left of Poniatowski and was met by the corps of Raevsky, Borozdin and Baggovut, and although Ney’s 3rd corps and Junot’s 8th corps backed Davout’s advance, they were unable to dislodge the Russians, who refused to give ground. By 10:00 am the battle was becoming a combat of attrition. The losses were mounting on both sides; the Russians blasted through the advancing French ranks. Marshal Davout had his horse shot under him and was thrown unconscious, Rapp was sent to take command, but he too fell. In the ensuing battle several French officers fell, including the valorous Cavalry Commander Montbrun and General August de Caulaincourt.
The French renewed their assault on Semyonovskaya while three hundred Russian guns pounded them. Many fell on both sides; General Bagration was mortally wounded, Tuchkov was killed, and Ney received four wounds, but was able to capture the southernmost gun emplacement and held it against several Russian counterattacks. Meanwhile, Ney pleaded with the Emperor to release the Imperial Guard to exploit the initial successes; his request was met by an adamant refusal: “If I throw in the Guard, what men would I have left to fight another battle tomorrow?”
The ‘Great Redoubt’, called the ‘three arrows’ (three fleeces) was under heavy counter attack by the Russians; Napoléon ordered Murat to launch his cavalry and capture the redoubt; Murat attacked the head of the Cavalry in full force and with Ney’s corps secured and stabilised the situation on this very strategically important point. Later, Ney remarked, “had the Emperor sent the Guard, we could have turned a limited break through into victory.”
Meanwhile Kutuzov had unleashed his Cossack’s Cavalry, forcing Eugene to take the defensive. Should Napoléon release the Guard, his left wing protecting the vital communications road to Smolensk would be endangered. Marshal Bessiéres, commanding the Guard concurred; “Our forces are less than 100,000 men. The enemy has unlimited resources. Will you risk your last reserves 2000 kilometres away from France?” This opinion was shared by Marshal Berthier, Napoléon’s chief of staff, and the intrepid Murat.
General Tolstoy’s IV corps redeployed from the right wing in a coordinated assault with General Platov on Borodino, now held by Eugene’s Italian corps; at the same time, General Uvarov, on the Russian right wing, led 18,000 Cossacks and Russian horsemen in a cavalry charge across the Kalatsha River to overtake Borodino. The Russian thrust was met by French re-enforcements brought by Eugene to the north bank of the Kalatsha River; the Russian offensive grounded to a halt and Borodino remained in French hands.
At about 3:00 pm General Dokhturov’s counterattack at Semyonovskaya was repulsed; his columns were pulverised by French artillery, forcing him to retreat and take up defensive positions.
Meanwhile at about 4:00pm on the southernmost front, Prince Poniatowski stormed and secured the Utitsa Mound after heavy fighting, forcing the Russians to fall back to conform to the movement of their centre. They were forced back from the main centre line of defence by the unrelenting thrust of Marshal Ney, Davout and Prince Eugene. While the French main force was unable to pursue their advance without the requested reserve back up, and had ground to a halt, Prince Poniatowski advanced down on the Old Smolensk-Moscow road, anxious to exploit his victory and envelop the left flank of the Russian army; but by then the Russians had withdrawn to their second line of defence and were beyond his reach.
When Marshal Davout proposed to Napoléon a wide strategic outflanking movement to the south, Poniatowski concurred, but had no choice but to conform to the Emperor’s plan of frontal attack on the centre and wings.
By 5:00 pm, hostilities had seized: the French were in possession of the whole Russian first line of defence, from the Kalatsha bend to the Utitsa redoubt. The Russians had fallen back to the next ridge, clearing the Smolensk Road to Moscow; with his forces reduced to 60,000, Kutuzov ordered an overall withdrawal.
Losses were heavy on both sides. French casualties were in excess of 30,000; while Russian losses in dead and wounded exceeded 45,000. Both sides also suffered a noticeable number of Generals and high ranking officers killed in battle. During Kutuzov’s counter offensive against the advancing corps of Davout, Eugene and Ney, the intrepid Cavalry Commander Montbrun was killed; his successor the Valiant General August de Caulaincourt met the same fate. All in, more than twenty-four French Generals and high-ranking officers lost their lives. The Russians did not fare any better; they suffered even higher numbers amongst their Generals and high-ranking officers, including the renowned General Bagration and General Tuchkov.
Armand de Caulaincourt, brother of the fallen Cavalry Commander General August de Caulaincourt, portrays the following picture of the combined assault of Marshals Davout, Ney and Viceroy Eugene against the seemingly impregnable Russian redoubt, as the Emperor ordered 100 guns from the reserve to pound the Russian positions:
“His Majesty rushed up at a gallop ahead of our cavalry, determined to assure the success of General Caulaincourt’s cavalry charge against the enemy as Marshals Ney and Davout advanced to back up the cavalry. The Emperor advanced to our front line to see personally the Russian position. The musket balls whistled so intensely round him that he ordered his personal guards back for safety and me as well. His altruistic gesture was requited by our insistence to stay at his side. The fusillade was so intense that Marshals Ney and Murat interfered to press the Emperor to retire. He not only brushed their plea aside, but personally led the advancing columns into the battle.”
After the cessation of hostilities, Kutuzov ordered his army overnight to withdraw towards Moscow. The Russians were not broken but they had suffered enormous losses; to make a final stand at this stage meant the possible destruction of the Russian army. He was hoping that Napoléon would repeat the disastrous errors of Charles XII and be ensnared in the Russian winter. “Let winter fight for Mother Russia,” said Kutuzov.
Racked with feverish cold and stunned with the heavy losses at Borodino, Napoléon slumped over his camp-bed, catching a few hours’ sleep. He was troubled by the steadfast Russian resistance; they’d rather die than fall prisoner to the enemy, prompting Napoléon to remark, “These Russians get killed rather than be taken as prisoners. They are fortresses that can only be demolished by cannon.” Later, during captivity at St. Helena, Napoléon remarked “the bloodiest of my battles was Borodino. The French showed themselves worthy of victory and the Russians worthy of being invincible.”
At dawn the next day Napoléon rode across the battlefield in silence; not since Wagram had he seen such carnage. The appalling sight of so many dead cluttered the battlefield. At the village of Borodino, where the fighting had centred, the Russian dead were stacked one on top of another. As he rode on, the medical corps were busy bringing in the wounded, while the Emperor oversaw the process in person. During this macabre procession, Napoléon heard a cry of pain from a prostrate soldier; he ordered a medical orderly to put him on a stretcher and take him for medical attention. “He is only a Russian,” whispered the aide; to this Napoléon snapped: “After victory there are only men, no enemies.”
Napoléon remained in Borodino two more days reflecting on his enormous losses; 46 Generals and high-ranking officers and close to 35,000 killed or wounded. On September 10th, Napoléon continued his advance on Moscow, while Kutuzov was abandoning the capital; a difficult decision which he justified in his communiqué: “As long as the army remains a striking force, we can hope to defeat the enemy and win the war; but if the army is destroyed in decisive battle, Moscow and Russia will cease to exist.” Kutuzov had the highest regard for Napoléon’s military genius; he had a taste of it at Austerlitz and Jena and was not ready to risk all in final pitched battle.
On September 13th, a bright Sunday afternoon, Napoléon’s army reached the outskirts of Moscow; the Emperor rode at the head of the Guard and proceeded on to the western hills to gaze at last upon the sparkling cupolas of Moscow. Escorted by the Guard, Napoléon rode forth, inspecting with awe the edifices of the Russian capital; shimmering palaces, mansions, churches and more churches – a sharp contrast to the burnt out cities and towns he left behind. There was no resistance to speak of; finally the men could rest, have decent meals and enjoy a period of respite after three months of marching. The pleasure of entering Moscow was overwhelming; hunger, privation, danger, and hardships were eclipsed by euphoria experienced by one and all. As he gazed at the sights, Napoléon remarked, “Moscow! Finally.”
Napoléon had expected all along that the Russians would sue for peace once Moscow had fallen; but there was no Russian deputation to meet him and hand over the city’s keys. Instead, he entered a deserted, silent city. In the afternoon, as he impatiently waited, the army was debouching from the west.
Contrary to the custom of surrender, when he rode victoriously through the gates of Vienna, Madrid, Berlin, and Milan, the Russians ignored his triumphant entrance, a clear message that they were adamant on continuing the war. This time there were no city keys offered in admission of submission, as ‘the art of war called for’. Instead only empty streets with large houses gaping at him and his entourage as he rode through. The Emperor and his General Staff headed to the Kremlin, the coronation site of the Tzars of Muscovy, where Peter the Great and his ancestor Ivan the Terrible were crowned. Preceded by his grenadiers, the Emperor entered the wide-flung doors of the Kremlin and established his headquarters in the adjunct palace, modelled on the baroque Roman style. He settled down and forthwith commenced issuing orders, billeting the troops and securing foods and fodders. Units of the army took up position around the Kremlin; others were billeted in the Imperial Barracks and others in the vacant houses.
On the night of September 15th, fires were reported in the Eastern quarter, fanned by strong winds, destroying its stores of food stuffs and other commodities usually found in bazaars. Initially Napoléon attributed the fire to drunken soldiers and looters; but captured arsonists confessed that they were ordered by Governor Count Rostopchin to burn the city, setting an example by setting his own opulent mansion on fire. Fire engines and pumps were either destroyed or put out of order; the French had to resort to whatever buckets were available, employing the army to pass them on from soldier in a desperate, futile attempt to extinguish the spreading fires.
Before Rostopchin abandoned the city, he had turned lose thousands of convicts, armed them with fuses and gunpowder, and ordered them to set fire to the capital. Fires were breaking out everywhere and getting closer to the Kremlin; Napoléon was at first reluctant to leave, but as the flames leapt closer, he ordered the guard and his retinue to vacate the Kremlin. “The heat was unbearable, the surroundings were ablaze … it was an inferno.”
On the afternoon of September 16th, Napoléon gave the order to leave Moscow and head to the safety of Petrovsky Palace, some eleven kilometres north of Moscow on the road to St. Petersburg. Behind him left a burning city devoured by blazing flames fanned by strong northerly wind. From Petrovsky Palace he watched the flames under a blazing sky, as more houses went up in flames, destroying the greater part of the city.
On September 18th, Napoléon returned to Moscow and again took up lodgings at the Kremlin, one of the few districts that remained unsacked. The city was a sad, charred sight. Collapsed houses, pillaged mansions razed to the ground; not even the churches were spared. The fire had been raging for the past four days, from September 15th through the 18th, yet one-fourth of the city was intact, providing enough lodging to billet his troops, and cellars were stacked with food-stuff, providing the army with enough rations.
Napoléon was hopeful that the Tzar would accept a negotiated peace settlement. But Moscow in ruins at the hands of the Russians themselves was an ominous sign that they were not interested in peace terms. On September 20, Napoléon sent an emissary with a letter to the Tzar, who was, at the time, in St. Petersburg, expressing his earnest desire for an honourable peace settlement. In early October 19th, he also sent General Lauriston, a distinguished officer who commanded the famous battery of 100 guns at Wagram and later, in 1810, escorted Marie-Louise from Vienna to France. In February 1811, he replaced Caulaincourt as ambassador to St. Petersburg and was well acquainted with the high-ranking Russian officials, including Kutuzov. In August 1812 he again joined the Grande Armée and became a close confident of the Emperor. Napoléon was hoping that Lauriston could reach some reasonable terms, if not with the recalcitrant Tzar, at least then with Kutuzov. Unfortunately, when he reached the Russian lines, Lauriston was turned back empty handed.
Stunned by the portentous Russian stance, Napoléon finally decided to embark on the trek of retreat. However, reports of interrogated Russian officers indicated that the Russian army was demoralised and in total disorder. This was further confirmed by Napoléon’s agents, reporting that the capture of Moscow and forcing Kutuzov’s decimated army to flee the city had left the Russian hierarchy in a very bleak mood, clamouring for peace. With these optimistic reports, Napoléon’s hopes for a peace settlement were revived, and he decided to prolong his stay in Moscow. Caulaincourt had forewarned Napoléon about the Russian winter, not that the Emperor was unaware of the dangers; he was very well acquainted with Charles XII’s Russian winter disaster – he had read Voltaire’s history of the Swedish King and the disaster that befell him when against all odds he marched against the Russians during the severe winter blizzard. Caulaincourt, who had himself experienced the severity of the Russian winter when serving as French ambassador, counselled Napoléon against continuing the campaign, to cut short his stay in Moscow and embark on the trek of retreat before the onset of winter. But Caulaincourt’s advice went unheeded; instead Napoléon remarked, “Caulaincourt imagines himself frozen already.” Besides, in Moscow they had all they need for food and drink and waiting for few weeks more would not change anything; he still hoped that the Russians will sue for peace.
When Napoléon returned from the Petrovsky Palace to the Kremlin, where very little damage has been done, a captured Russian officer was brought to him. Napoléon told the Russian officer: “I am conducting a purely political war; all I need is the fulfilment of our treaties. I shall withdraw very soon. If the Tzar wants peace he must let me know of his wish … you are free to go on one condition: that you head on to St. Petersburg and inform the Tzar of everything that I told you.”
The stunned officer responded, “I shall not be permitted to see him, sire.”
Napoléon then wrote one last letter to the Tzar, expostulating and telling the Tzar that the fire had left Moscow in charred ruins “serving no purpose; for the flames never reached the cellars; your attempt to deprive me of food and drink has failed. In the rush of getting the fire engines away, your officials abandoned 170 pieces of ordnance. My war against your Majesty was conducted without rancour, a sign from you before the battle of Borodino would have sufficed to end the hostilities and peacetimes would have been reached …” etc.
Whether the letter reached its destination is debatable, but what is certain is that Russia was in favour of peace; the rumours of Napoléon advancing to St. Petersburg left the Russians in despair. Even the Tzarina, Alexander’s mother, who regarded Napoléon as a usurper and an upstart, urged Alexander to sue for peace; the Grand Duke Constantine and Chancellor Rumanzov urged the Tzar to conclude an honourable peace settlement, but the Tzar would not budge. Behind the Tzar’s determination stood the rancorous Bernadotte and Barone vom Stein. Bernadotte would never forget the humiliation he had suffered by Napoleon when he was ordered off the field in disgrace at Wagram. He promised the Tzar reinforcements, starting with the conquest of Norway.
At the convention of St. Petersburg when Bernadotte had become Crown Prince of Sweden, an alliance was initiated with the Tzar and ratified in Stockholm and St. Petersburg on the 5th and 9th of April 1812. Baron vom Stein, a Prussian Nationalist, educated in England and exiled by Napoléon after an aborted conspiracy, took refuge in Russia and became a trusted adviser of the Tzar. He was instrumental in convincing the Tzar to persevere; in June 1812, after Napoléon’s invasion of Russia, he successfully worked on initiating the sixth coalition between Russian and England.
The most damaging to Napoléon’s reign was Talleyrand; in Tilsit and Erfurt, the hobbling traitor advised the Tzar to “act now and rid Europe of this dictator.” He periodically kept the Russians informed of the most damaging information about his master’s plans. And while Napoléon was struggling through the Russian quagmire, Talleyrand was betraying his master and opening secret negotiations with the allies and émigrés.
Finally, on October 15th, after four weeks had lapsed with no word from the Tzar, Napoléon summoned a council of war, attended by Marshals Berthier, Murat, Davout, Dura and Prince Eugene. He told them that he had decided to march on St. Petersburg. They unanimously advised against this plan, pointing out that marching north would put the army in danger of being cut off from its lines of supplies and communication. Napoléon concurred and the idea was dropped; however, as early as September 18th, when he had just returned from Petrovsky Palace, he had decided to make his winter quarters in Moscow. And for the next four weeks, he spent half the time issuing army orders, organising deployment of troops, cavalry reconnaissance of enemy positions and strategic emplacements of troops of artillery batteries. He arranged for French plays to be performed by a troupe that had remained during the evacuation, starting with Marivaux’s Le Jeu de L’amour et du Hasard; he even planned a list of Comedie Francaise actors to be invited to Moscow.
So why did Napoléon change his plans for making his winter quarters in Moscow? There are several plausible answerss; first, his premonitions about a possible coup d’état. In May 1809, a deranged ex-officer called Malet was implicated in a plot against the Emperor. Fouché, then Minister of Police, transferred the alleged conspirators to other prisons and dismissed the plot as a ‘figment of the imagination’. Both Fouché and Dubois, the Police Prefecture, were dismissed after having released Malet in 1812 and transferred him to a mental institution (maison de santé); Fouché and Dubois were replaced by General Savary and Pasquier.
Napoléon’s forebodings were confirmed as the army left Moscow; around November 15 a courier arrived and handed the Emperor a sealed document. The document revealed that Malet, an ex-General during the days of the Republic, who was committed to a mental asylum, had escaped with a number of accomplices and caused havoc by forging a dispatch announcing the Emperor’s death. The conspirators arrested the Minister of Police, barged into the residence of the military governor of Paris, General Hulin, and shot him dead. For a while the National Guard was deceived by Malet’s fake dispatch, even the militia. Orders were given to arrest General Clarke, the War Minister, and Arch Chancellor Cambacérès. Even General Soulier, who commanded the National Guard, was duped into believing that the Emperor was dead and was about to carry out his orders of arrest. However, General Laborde and his adjutant, Colonel Doucet, uncovered the plot and seized the conspirators; and with that came the end of Malet’s charade. This document had left the Emperor stunned and further asserted his earlier premonitions.
English newspapers, gloating over Napoléon’s setbacks in Russia, revealed the truth which had been mantled by the Emperor’s bulletins; this had left the Parisians in a state of despair, adding more anxiety to the Emperor’s state of mind.
Another salient and just as important if not even more important reason is the fact that Napoléon had left behind his most precious gift of life … his son. He loved his little boy and was often seen playing with him and caressing him. He could not bear the extended duration of time away from him, a period of at least another six months before the setting in of spring and all uncertainties that go with it. He had therefore decided to act decisively and impatiently on the long trek of heading back home.
Napoléon had finally made up his mind; even General Daru Prudent’s counsel to make the winter quarters in Moscow and await reinforcements, then march on St. Petersburg in the spring was ignored. The Emperor was obsessed with ongoing events in Paris; behind him he had left a web of conspirators, starting with Talleyrand and Fouché, but most important was the possession he loved most … his son.
On October 15th, the first snow fell on Moscow, an ominous sign, for far worse weather was to come. On the 18th, Kutuzov surprised and defeated Murat at Vinkovo; this came as a surprise to Murat, who had maintained regular contact with Kutuzov’s Headquarters in the incredulous hope of reaching some honourable peace settlement. The Russian army had by now established positions at the Berezina and seized Desna, some 45 kilometres from Moscow.
On October 19th, at two in the afternoon Napoléon gave the order to leave Moscow; he had spent six weeks in that city torn between the possibility of peace terms and the hard pressing reality of wasted precious time before the onset of winter.
Loaded with a bounty of furs, gold ingots, jewelled ikons, silk, sabres, and brandy, the baggage train would become an added impediment in the long march of retreat. But Napoléon refused to deprive his soldiers of taking back home some their trophies after all the hardships they had been through in their campaign.
Napoléon’s Grande Armée had by now dwindled to less than 110,000 men, including 18,000 cavalry, from the original 500,000 men when the campaign had started four months before. His objective was to reach Smolensk via the old Kaluga Road; the wounded were loaded in wagons and entrusted to the Young Guard; Marshal Mortier, commanding the Young Guard, was instructed by Napoléon to provide the utmost care for ‘these valiant soldiers’. But not even the best efforts and unselfish sacrifices could save those forlorn disabled soldiers.
On October 24th, six days after they marched out of Moscow, Eugene’s Italian Corps was defending Malojaroslawitz, which came under fierce attack by Dokhturov’s army, intending to bar Napoléon’s Vanguard from effecting a junction with Eugene’s corps. The Russians were beaten and had to retreat.
On the 25th of October, Napoléon, escorted by a bevy of Imperial Guard and accompanied by Marshal Bertheir, General Rapp and Caulaincourt, set out to visit the battlefield at Malojaroslawitz where Eugene’s corps had distinguished themselves. All of a sudden Rapp shouted, “Cossacks! Turn back!” as a bevy of horsemen charged at a gallop, shouting “Houra! Houra!”. Napoléon, refusing to turn back, drew his sword and advanced, shouting orders; Rapp, Bertheir and Caulaincourt drew their swords and followed suit; the Guard drew their swords and advanced at a steady pace, flanking the Emperor. With less than a hundred metres left before the two sides collided, the Imperial Guard Cavalry, hearing the sounds, charged the Cossacks at full gallop and put them to flight.
Napoléon gave the order to march to Smolensk, defended by the French garrison he had left behind to maintain his lines of communications. Already his army was disintegrating through sheer hunger, and horses were dying by the thousands, unable to forage, as the Cossacks relentlessly attacked them and killed anyone who so much as ventured to look for pasture. On November 5th, snow started to fall; the horses were not shod for cold weather and thousands more succumbed to the element. Caulaincourt wrote: “Neither the cavalry nor the artillery horses were shod for cold weather. Most of our losses must be attributed to the lack of foresight and negligence.”
The army reached Gzhatsk and Vyazma on the 6th and 7th November, in a line stretching more than 30 kilometres of troops, wagons, and artillery pieces now numbering less than 500 from the 1200 that they started with. Prince Schwarzenberg, who had distinguished himself at Polotsk by defeating Tormassov and forcing him to recoil, had decided to abandon Napoléon’s army to fall back to Warsaw. On November 3, the French rear-guard commanded by Marshal Davout was attacked at Vyazma and was only saved by the intervention of Prince Eugene and Ney’s 3rd Corps, putting the Russians to flight. In the aftermath Napoléon ordered Marshal Ney to take over the command of the rear-guard and redeploy his corps, forming a deterrent force.
Finally, on November 9th, Napoléon reached Smolensk, as temperatures continued to drop. Less than 50,000 men was all the force that were left. The Smolensk garrison had consumed the food supplies and as if that was not perilous enough, the temperature dropped below freezing; the Cavalry had been reduced to a mere 4000 from the 14000 they set out with from Moscow. Meanwhile, two Russian armies under General Chichagov and Wittgenstein were advancing, the first towards Beresina at Borisov to seize the key bridges and the second towards Orsha, defended by Marshals Victor and Oudinot’s 9th and 11th Corps, a total of 25,000 men, while MacDonald’s corps of 20,000 men was garrisoned at Riga at the Baltic to secure the lines of communication between Warsaw and the French army operating in Russia.
Not far from Smolensk, Napoléon received news that General d’Hillier, who was made Governor of Smolensk during the invasion and was now commanding a division of Marshal Victor’s 9th Corps was badly mauled at Jena. He was suspended pending a court martial inquiry into his conduct. The forlorn General died in Berlin in January 1813, of a fever and nervous breakdown.
On November 14th, Napoléon marched his army out of Smolensk with the formations of the cavalry and Imperial Guard, followed by Davout commanding 1st Corps and Ney heading the rear-guard. When Napoléon reached Krasnoi on November 15, he found Kutuzov’s army barring the road to Minsk and preparing for battle. It would take the rest of Napoléon’s army corps two days to catch up with the vanguard; therefore Napoléon decided to strike first, before the arrival of the rest of his army, preventing the Russians from falling on the exhausted troops as they streamed in to join up with the vanguard. Heading the Imperial Guard in person, Napoléon launched a devastating offensive against Kutuzov, 30,000 troops smashing their lines, trampling their colours and putting them to flight; in the words of Davydov, the Russian partisan leader a description was given of this offensive “Napoléon, at the head of the Guard, smashed through our lines like a hundred-gun ship through a fishing fleet.”
Marshal Ney, commanding the rear-guard, had not caught up with Napoléon, and on November 20th he was given up for lost. Six days had passed since they left Smolensk and no news of Ney’s whereabouts. Later they would learn that Ney’s finest hours were his feats of arms as he fought his way through enemy lines, spurring on his men and refusing to surrender; he advanced northwards and crossed the frozen Dnieper, finally reaching Orsha with fewer than 1000 men and joining up with Oudinot and Eugene’s corps.
As Napoléon regrouped, he received news on November 22 that Minsk was captured, depriving his army of its food supplies and arsenal. On the 24th of November, at the village of Lesznetza, he received more disturbing news; Chichagov, after isolating Prince Schwarzenberg’s corps towards the end of October, had advanced and captured Borisov and destroyed the bridge across the Berezina. Should Wittgenstein, commanding the Northern Russian army, effect a junction with Chichagov, advancing from the south, the situation would have become not only precarious, but perilous. With Napoléon’s army now cut off by Admiral Chichagov, the Russian issued a description of the Emperor and an order for his arrest.
The dire situation had prompted some to contemplate capitulation; but Napoléon, concerned as he was, would have none of it. He ordered the regimental Eagles to be destroyed rather than fall into the hands of the enemy. He then harangued the officers and troops: “Soldiers! I have led you to victories that extended beyond the limits of glory. You have defeated the Enemy at Borodino and crushed his columns again and reached our frontiers safely.”
The soldiers responded with resounding thunderousacclamations; “Long live the Emperor!’ He had turned their mood from despondency to hope. He then ordered the baggage train burned and freed the pack-animals to draw the remaining artillery.
From 150,000 horses at the start of the campaign, a mere four to five thousand remained, including those of the calvary. Most had died from lack of fodder and the severe Russian winter; reduced to eating thatch of rooftops and the bark of trees, horses died by the thousands from colic. Those that remained were so weak that guns had to be discarded, for the miserable animals could hardly carry themselves.
Atrocities perpetrated by partisans and marauding Cossacks against stragglers or those caught sleeping in peasant huts defied description; they would slit their throats or batter them to death as they slept; stragglers were cut down by the Cossacks’ sabres. The Russian leadership had no compunction over these atrocities; they considered it act of liberation and revenge against the French invader. But when chivalry was moribund in one sector, altruism shone in the other. An Imperial Guard Dragoon called Malet was so attached to his horse that he would often risk his own life breaking into the Russian camps stealthily and stealing enough fodder to keep his horse alive. Both dragoon and horse were amongst the lucky few to return to France. When a regimental wagon carrying funds had to be abandoned, the gold was entrusted to officers and privates and on their honour to hand it over to a comrade if the bearer was badly injured; not an ounce went missing.
At the Polotsk battle, Prince Schwarzenberg, General Saint-Cyr (Awarded the Marshal’s Baton after the battle) Marshal Oudinot had all distinguished themselves, yet the valour of others would go unforgotten in the annals of military history. The stalwart Brechtel, a Lieutenant-Colonel with a wooden leg which had been twice shattered during the campaign, had fallen off his horse during a cavalry charge; he rose up, unsheathed his sword and hobbled into the thick of the fray, striking down the attacker before he was rescued by his comrades and taken off the field.
By November 22nd, Napoléon had regrouped. Ney, after having been given up for lost, had now joined Eugene and Oudinot’s corps near Orsha, the Guards garrison that was left at Borodino was recalled and now joined the main force at Orsha; with a combined force totalling 50,000 men including cavalry and 250 guns, Napoléon mounted and marched at the head of his army, reaching the Berezina River on the afternoon of November 25th. The river, contrary to expectations of being frozen in late November, turned out to be a violent torrent. In hot pursuit was Kutuzov’s army of some 80,000 men; this overwhelming Russian force, if not diverted by a stratagem, would bring disastrous results for the French forces preparing to cross the 380 metre wide river. Therefore, Napoléon ordered Marshal Oudinot to head a detachment and proceed ten kilometres downstream and cut down trees with great noise, feigning the construction of a bridge and lighting bonfires, giving the impression that the army was bivouacking there.
The next day at dawn, from his headquarters in a flour mill at Studienka, Napoléon exulted as he saw Admiral Chichagov’s Russians taking the bait and moving their forces southward. “I have duped the Russians,” remarked Napoléon. More good news reached Napoléon when on the 25th a cavalry officer named Corbineau discovered a ford near the hamlet of Studienka where the river’s width was less than 150 meters and the maximum depth 175 centimetres. Having drawn his 25,000 men south to confront what he thought was a French diversionary crossing led by Oudinot, Admiral Chichagov had effectively cleared the opposite bank of the river for a safe French crossing. Without a moment lost, Napoléon gave orders to construct two bridges, a light one for the infantry and a heavier one 320 meters downstream for the cavalry, cannons and supply wagons. 400 pontonniers plunged into the icy water up to their armpits and heroically raced to construct the two bridges as Napoléon watched, exhorting them and applauding their heroism. They worked nonstop for 24 hours; quite a few would die of hypothermia. The two bridges had to be ready before Kutuzov’s 80,000-man army and Wittgenstein’s 32,000 could catch up with the pontonniers and French comrades stranded on the Berezina’s banks.
On the 27th, at one o’clock, the infantry bridge was complete; as the infantry streamed across, Napoléon was informed that Chichagov had by now realized his blunder and was now tied down in heavy fighting with Oudinot’s force. Oudinot, the most wounded (32 wounds and the most decorated Marshal), was severely wounded and Ney took over the command, continuing to pin down Chichagov’s 30,000 men, with valorous counter attack, despite the enemy’s numerical superiority of four to one.
On the 27th, in the afternoon, Napoléon crossed the Berezina with the Guard, while on the 26th the cavalry had already swum across the Berezina, securing a safe bridge head on the opposite bank; the same day Oudinot led his corps across the light bridge, while heavier equipment including wagons, guns and units of the Imperial Guard Cavalry were sent across the heavier bridge.
Meanwhile, Napoléon had ordered Victor to engage Wittgenstein and check his advance; the Marshal’s 9th Corps fought with distinction, holding back the enemy. However, on November 26 General Partouneaux, commanding a division of Victor’s rear-guard, failed to hold off Platov and Wittgenstein, bungled his role and, to Napoléon’s fury, capitulated with his men. It was the only division of the Grande Armée to surrender.
On the 27th, day and night, weary troops crossed the river, except for Victor’s corps, who were engaged with the Russians’ advance guard. On the 28th Wittgenstein arrived with his main force and violent fighting ensued on both banks of the river, but over the course of the night Victor successfully brought his rear-guard across. The following morning, on the 29th, two hours after all forces had crossed, including Victor’s reserve corps and Oudinot, General Eblé, who was instrumental in improvising the two bridges, had them set on fire.
Much of the credit for the crossing of 50,000 men, albeit weary but still in fighting spirit, goes to Marshals Victor, Oudinot and Ney, whose valour, steadfastness and heroism kept the Russians at bay while their comrades crossed to the opposite bank. Of equal valour were the pontonniers who plunged in the icy water of the Berezina up to their armpits to build bridges and save their comrades. These were feats of altruism and bravery that forever shall remain in the annals of military history.
Not so lucky were the unfortunate stragglers who remained on the left bank of the Berezina, unable to cross before the bridges were blown up; many were cut down by Cossacks’ sabres, the rest were taken prisoners.
50,000 men, most of the wagons, and all but a few pieces of artillery had crossed the Berezina, as battles raged on both banks of the river, inflicting some 15,000 casualties on the RussiansIt is true that the French had suffered immense losses, but so did the Russians. By the time Kutuzov reached the Niemen, he barely had 40,000 men left.
Ney, in a letter to his wife, described the retreat: “The army marches under heavy snowfall, the soldiers covered in snowflakes, the stragglers cut down by the sabres of Cossacks. I command the rear-guard covering the retreat as the army files in broken ranks; they have become a disoriented rabble, hunger stricken and feverish. We fight a rear action against the advancing Russians to prevent encirclement, while under General Eblé’s orders four hundred pontonniers hurl themselves into the icy water with unprecedented devotion and embark on constructing bridges for us to cross. As the crossing begins, Russians shells fall in the middle of the jostling crowd pushing to get across … a gruesome scene.”
Throughout the crossing, it was Napoléon’s placid superintendence of the operation that brought it to a successful conclusion. The Emperor, though the risk of being taken prisoner was severe, refused to cross until all others had done so. Then, on the third day, surrounded by the guard, he too crossed over to the opposite bank.
On December 5th a rumoured attempt on Napoléon’s life by a French Major named Lapierre in collaboration with the officers of the Prussian Guard of Honour fizzled out at the last moment when Lapierre lost heart. The affair was dismissed as a figment of the imagination and forgotten.
After the crossing, Napoléon wrote to his Foreign Minister at Vilna: “There must be no foreign agents at Vilna. Food must be in plenty to satisfy the famished troops and prevent them from being turned into a marauding mob.”
Napoléon had not informed his generals of Malet’s plot when he was first informed of it in early November. He had chosen to do so after the crossing of the Berezina. On December 6, when the army was at Smorgoni about sixty kilometres from Vilna, Napoléon summoned his Marshals and informed them of the Malet Plot.
“A man nobody has heard of announced the death of the Emperor within the walls of Moscow. What about my son? There had been no cry of the Emperor is dead … long live the Emperor!” realizing how close the demented Malet was to succeed and how precarious the Imperial dynasty was, he added, “I will crown my son during my lifetime, and galvanize my loyal French supporters.” His Generals were all in agreement that the Emperor’s presence in Paris was of paramount importance.
Marshal Duroc sums up their opinion: “Sire, your presence in Paris is a Paramount importance for France and the Empire, even our own safety. In Paris you will have better control on the reins of command.”
On December 6th, six months had passed since the start of the Russian campaign; Napoléon embraced every one of his generals present, handed over the command to Marshal Murat with Berthier as chief of staff, and embarked on his return journey to France.
Napoléon left Smorgoni late in the evening by Sleigh; Caulaincourt sat beside him. In two separate sleighs rode Napoléon’s Polish interpreter, Marshal Duroc, General Dura, the intendant General of the Grande Armée, Ruston, Napoléon’s Mameluke bodyguard, two adjutants and two valets.
The thermometers dropped to 25 Celsius below zero; Caulaincourt recounts, “we suffered from severe cold between Vilna and Kovna, a distance of some ninety kilometres. We were all dressed in thick wool and covered with bearskin rugs, fur boots and bags of bear’s skin, yet the frosty weather was so severe that breath froze into icicles under the nose, on the eyelids, on the eyebrows and on the lips.”
On December 7th they crossed the Niemen into Polish territory; four days later on the 11th, Napoléon and his companions, after five days of setting out from Smorgoni, under continuous snow and freezing weather, arrived in Warsaw. Once across the Praga Bridge, Napoléon stepped out surrounded by his companions and walked down the Krakow Boulevard, leaving the sleighs waiting on the bridge, guarded by the two valets. At noon, accompanied by Caulaincourt, they went into town. The Emperor, dressed in a fur-lined green velvet cloak and large fur cap, went about with Caulaincourt unnoticed by the crowd milling about their business. Napoléon sent Caulaincourt to the embassy and he himself headed on to a small inn called the Hotel de L’angleterre rather than the palace, to keep his own identity secret. At the embassy Caulaincourt tells Ambassador de Pradt that his presence is required at the Hotel de L’angleterre to meet the Emperor. The stunned Pradt asked, “Why doesn’t he stay at the palace?”
“He wants to remain incognito.”
Through the embassy he sends for Stanislas and the Polish Minister of Finance; other dignitaries that he had met during the last reception given in his honour were also summoned. At the inn, the maidservant failed to light the green wood fire in the chimney; the low-ceilinged little room was freezing cold and Napoléon had to keep on his fur-lined coat, his fur-lined boots and his fur cap; he walked back and forth down the room, thrashing his arms to keep warm.
His Polish guests, who had seen him in glorious days holding a triumphant parade on and near the Praga Bridge, brimming over with regal confidence during Royal Galas held in his honour, could now hardly believe their eyes, but the Emperor smiled and received them with the ironic dictum: “Gentlemen … from the sublime to ridiculous is but one step,” quoting the words of Voltaire’s La Mort de Cezar and circumventing derisory criticism and the gloating over his setbacks. “How are you, Monsieur Stanislas, and you, Monsieur Le Minister de Finances?”
“We are quite well and overjoyed to see your Majesty safe after so many dangers.”
“Dangers? Not at all. I thrive on challenging confrontations; the more I face adversities, the sharper my prudence and the healthier my faculties. The lethargic kings grow fat in their place, but I grow healthier riding my horse in the field. From the sublime to the ridiculous is but one step.” He repeated the aphorism of the sublime and the ridiculous no less than five times during the colloquy, mitigating future criticism.
In self-denial, Napoléon told his guests “The army remains in fighting spirit; I still have 120,000 men under the command of Marshal Murat with Marshal Berthier as his chief of staff. The army will rally at Vilna where plenty of food is available. At Marengo I was beaten until six in the evening, by ten the victory was mine; next day I was the Suzerain Master of Italy. At Aspern-Essling, I couldn’t help it if the Danube had risen five meters in one night, making the Archduke Karl believe that he had won the day; soon after, at Wagram, I became master of Austria. I should have finished off the Austrian Hapsburgs once and for all, but for their luck providence intervened and I married the Emperor’s daughter. The same thing in Russia; I couldn’t endure the frost like the Russians. By contrast, the Russians horses stood well against the weather.
“Perhaps people will say I stayed too long in Moscow. That may be; but the weather was deceptively mild, and I expected the Tzar to sue for honourable peace. What an irony; what a political drama; you risk nothing; you win nothing … who could have envisaged the burning of Moscow? If the Tzar had relied so much on the weather to do their fighting for them, why then order the burning of towns and Moscow? A very stupid decision!”
He then spoke of Kutuzov’s retreat: “Kutuzov pusillanimously retreated from Moscow and opted for despicable Guerrilla warfare. The Russian winter was our perpetual enemy and the cause of our reverses.” Then, as he recovered his self-assurance, he told his guests not to be downhearted; he would soon be back on the Niemen at the head of a 150,000 men strong army and would deal a crushing defeat to the barbarians of the north. On their part they must raise a new Polish army of 60,000 men to join up with his advancing columns. Three hours the torrential speech went on; then, during a pause, Stanislas dwelled on their country’s financial debts and Napoléon responded with an order on the French treasury for 10 million Francs.
All said, Pradt the French Ambassador and the Polish guests bade the Emperor and his entourage farewell and watched them speed away in their sleighs.
In the aftermath of the unfolding setbacks, Napoléon became self-critical. He told Caulaincourt that he made two mistakes: “I thought to achieve in one campaign what could only be achieved by two campaigns. I should have wintered in Vitebsk and carried on the campaign in the spring; this would have forced Alexander to sue for peace. The Russians were unable to defeat us and although the winter favoured them, their casualties were as high if not more than ours. Barclay’s replacement by Kutuzov was to our advantage, since Barclay was a better general.”
The Russian pursuit, which had never been hard pressed, and the dividing of the Russian army after crossing the Niemen “amazed me,” Napoléon told Caulaincourt. “My second mistake was the prolonged stay in Moscow for six weeks. The mild weather deceived me, and I still had hopes to conclude an honourable peace with the Tzar. I should have left four weeks sooner; my army would have been at Vitebsk.” Yet Napoléon’s anxieties about his son and young wife, as well as his concern about the state of affairs in Paris, were what prompted his speedy return.
Napoléon would comment later that “The English act with impunity; they merely send money and let others do their fighting. They are the bane of all evils”; and, when asked why did he not free the serfs in Russia, he answered, “They wanted me to liberate the serfs; I refused; they bore deep grudges against their masters and, given the opportunity, they would have massacred them.”
A day after he left Warsaw, he raced ahead, reaching Posen on 11 December. His concern was to re-establish the lines of communications between the army and France, connecting Vilna’s already founded post with Posen, Dresden, Landau, Mainz and so on until the capital.
Caulaincourt remarks on Napoléon’s impatience and overjoyed reaction on receiving news about his son and wife Marie-Louise: “Numb with cold, my fingers were not quick enough to open the cases; the Emperor’s impatience rose to a crescendo; he would have torn apart the cases had he had a sharp object at hand. At last, I handed him the Empress’ letter and Madame d’Montesquiou’s report on his son.” Throughout the campaign, Napoléon eagerly followed the progress of his son. He was so delighted to receive the two letters that he read them aloud to Caulaincourt, concluding brightly, “Don’t I have a remarkable wife?”
On December 11th, Murat wrote despairingly to Napoléon: “Every human effort to remedy the disorder is in vain; one can only resign oneself.” On December 12th Marshal Berthier reported to Napoléon: “The army has disintegrated, even the Guards’ 1000 men. Twenty-five centimetres of frost and heavy snow on the ground are the cause of the disastrous state of the army.”
“I made a mistake by leaving Murat in command of the army. Murat is not capable of high command and he lost his head after my departure,” Napoléon told Caulaincourt.
Murat’s conduct during the retreat was, to say the least, questionable. He had contravened orders to stand at Vilna. All he thought of was his safe return to his kingdom in Naples. So, his first blunder was to abandon on the frosty hill of Ponarskaia the baggage train, the army treasure and worst of all the remaining guns of the Guard.
On December 14th, the valiant Ney, still in fighting spirits, led the rear-guard over the Niemen; he barely had a thousand men fit for action. By the time the remaining units had crossed and regrouped behind the Niemen, the Grande Armée had dwindled to less than forty thousand men. Macdonald’s 10th Corps’ northern flank, in siege of Riga since August through December, had failed, prompting General Yorck to defect to the allies at the head of his Prussian contingent.
The heaviest losses suffered by the Grande Armée in men and material were amongst the French and Polish units, for many of the Prussian, Austrian and other auxiliary forces had either defected or deserted. For example, Prince Schwarzenberg had been able to return most of his men safely to Austria as related earlier. As for Prince Poniatowski’s Corps, during the withdrawal, their first major action was at Vyazma. Their manoeuvres had shaken Kutuzov’s sense of security and inhibited his pursuit of the French army. Their presence on Kutuzov’s flank had cowed him from pressing hard at Malojaroslawitz to trap Napoléon’s Army. Near Vereya, the prince led a valiant cavalry charge; with mutual hate between Russians and Poles, during the heated combat, they gave no quarter. These actions of attrition had reduced Poniatowski’s Corps to 3,500 men.
Poniatowski turned back from Vyazma to help the Viceroy Eugene rescue Davout’s Corps from encirclement and annihilation by the pursuing Russians. Thereafter Poniatowski acted in conjunction with Marshal Ney’s Corps. On November 5, when snow began to fall, the Poles, with their horses better shod for winter, progressed ahead of the Grande Armée. Near Krasnoi Prince Poniatowski fell from his horse and was put into a carriage to continue the retreat. On November 26th they reached the Berezina and watched the army crossing. After he crossed with his men, they continued their march, reaching Warsaw on December 24th. There, he reviewed the survivors of his 10th Corps and thereafter set about reconstituting the Polish forces. Seven months later on July 13, 1813, he would join the Emperor on his German campaign against the allies. In Napoléon’s words: “He was a man of noble character, brimming-over with honour and bravery. Had I succeeded in Russia, I would have made him king of Poland.”
And where was Ney? On November 3rd, Ney still had 6,000 infantrymen, a squadron of cavalry and 12 guns. On November 18th, he was cut off by the Russian General Miloradovich. A Russian officer was sent to demand his surrender, to which Ney responded, “A Marshal of France does not surrender. One does not parley under enemy fire. You are my prisoner!” Musket in hand, he led a daredevil charge and broke through the enemy lines. On November 20, he came near Orsha with his force now down to 2,000 men. He then found himself cut off by a mass of Cossack Cavalry. “Tambours! La Charge!” the Marshal thundered, and led his men in a shattering attack and broke through the stunned Cossacks line.
On receiving the tidings of Ney’s breakthrough, the Emperor exclaimed, “Ney’s feat of arms is like that of a renowned victory. I have three hundred million francs at the Tuileries. I’d give the lot to save Ney. What a soldier! The army of France is full of brave men, but Ney is the bravest of the brave.”
The Emperor was able to reinforce Ney to the strength of 4,000 men, enabling him to continue his rear-guard action behind the melting remains of the Grande Armée as it trudged westward. The Marshal’s strategy was both simple and practical. Toward the end of a day’s march he would take up a defensive position in a wood or small ravine. Then he would close his ranks and light fires. Food would be cooked, and the men given five hours rest. Around 10 pm, they would follow the army’s route, halting at first light and repeating the process all over again. By December 13th Ney had only 1,000 men left. With this force the Marshal and General Baron Gerard held the bridge at Kovna. The valiant veteran Jean-Roch Coignet describes the scene: “Marshal Ney effected a retreat at nine o’clock at night, after having destroyed all that remained of our artillery, ammunition and provisions and having set fire to the bridges. It may be said in praise of Marshal Ney that he kept the enemy at bay at Kovna by his own bravery. I saw him take a musket and five men and face the enemy. The country ought to be grateful for such men.”
When Ney had crossed the Niemen on December 14th, he barely had 1,000 men fit for action. On December 15th he reached Gumbinnen, in East Prussia. He wore a brown ragged coat over his tattered uniform, his beard long, his eyes shot red, glaring out from his darkened reddish face. Like an apparition, he burst in on the intendant general of the Grande Armée, Count Mathieu Dumas, who was at breakfast.
Ney: “Here I am then.”
Dumas: “But who are you?”
Ney: “What?! Don’t you recognize me? I am Marshal Ney; the rear-guard of the Grande Armée. I have fired the last shot on the bridge at Kovna. I have thrown the last of our muskets into the Niemen. I have made my way here across a hundred fields of snow. Also, I’m damnably hungry. Get someone to bring me a bowl of soup.”
Earlier during the retreat, after crossing the Niemen, Napoléon read out a draft of his twenty-ninth Bulletin. “I will tell all” was published on December 16th, a day after Ney’s arrival at Gumbinnen in East Prussia. The Bulletin was forthright describing the horrors and suffering of the retreat and ascribing the disaster to the severity of the Russian winter. Hinting to General Malet’s conspiracy and the fabricated rumours of the Emperor’s death, Napoléon ended the Bulletin with the fitting words, “His Majesty’s health has never been better.”
Caulaincourt remarks, “During the whole course of the disastrous retreat not one murmur was heard against the Emperor. It was his placid sangfroid that carried us through utter disaster.”
Marshal MacDonald and his 10th Corps, consisting chiefly of Prussian troops, Polish contingents, Westphalians, and Bavarians, hardly saw any action. His role was to protect the Northern flank of the Grande Armée by controlling the Baltic provinces. By December 15th, they were ordered to lift the siege on Riga and fall back on Tilsit. MacDonald went ahead of General Yorck, the commander of the Prussian force, to establish the crossing over the Niemen. The first ominous sign as to what happened soon after appeared when Yorck, on his own initiative, defected with his 17,000 Prussians and signed a separated armistice with the Russians. The furious MacDonald lashed out at Yorck, describing his action as “An act of treachery unparalleled in history.” He then led the remainder of his troops in a fast fighting retreat to join up with Ney at Königsberg.
On December 12th, Napoléon crossed into Prussia; he was concerned about political cartoonist with their grisly caricatures to be seen by the returning Guard, showing lines of ragged, ghost-like troops trudging through the snow without weapons and, hovering above, a squalid vulture instead of the proud Imperial Eagle. He was worried about plots by the Prussians to ambush him and hand him over to the English. He asked Caulaincourt: “Can you picture to yourself, the figure you would cut in an Iron Cage in the main square of London?”
Caulaincourt, a tactful courtier, replied: “If it meant sharing your destiny, sire, I should not complain.”
“It’s not a questioning, but rather a thought of what may happen any moment and of the figure you would cut in that cage, shut up like a wretched Negro, smeared with honey and left to be eaten by flies.”
Caulaincourt adds, “At this grisly image, Napoléon shook with hysterical laughter for a whole quarter of an hour. Then, regaining his composure, he calmed down and primed his pistols.”
In Germany, also under snow, they continued day and night, night and day their swift glide westward. In twenty-four hours, they would stop only for one or two hours. On this arduous journey, Napoléon was alert and raised many questions; “Will the Federation of the Rhine still answer to my call? Is there a chance of raising another 120,000 men in France? How will it be possible to explain this disaster in Russia?”
On December 14th, they reached Weimar. There they transferred to a coach and were able to make fast progress; the roads were clear of snow and when he reached Dresden, the formerly gaily lit chandeliered state reception halls of the Saxon Palace were dark and cold; there were no welcoming committees. Just a few months earlier these halls had witnessed sumptuous balls, princes and kings bedecked with glittering uniforms, their queens, princesses and duchesses in their ravishing gowns; they were now but an empty haunting scene of vast halls.
Napoléon and his escort following behind crossed Erfurt, Fulda and on December 16 reached the Rhine. They crossed by boat and stepped ashore in Mainz. Caulaincourt recounts that “the Emperor was overwhelmed with joy to stand again on French soil …”
On December 16th Napoléon’s twenty-ninth bulletin appeared in the Moniteur. He was true to his word, “I will tell all”; he had hidden nothing of his terrible losses, and just like Aspern-Essling, when the Danube rose six meters, so was the ‘early Russian winter to blame’. He was anxious as to how the French would receive his Twenty-Ninth Bulletin. The French were stunned to realize that the Victor of Marengo, Abu Qir, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram and other triumphant battles had now suffered a disastrous defeat in his Russian Campaign. Already many a Frenchman was mourning the loss of loved ones and it dawned on them that their Emperor was not invincible after all. However, they still had faith in him and that he will triumph over this tribulation andability to save the nation. Not so the gloating Talleyrand, remarking “It is the beginning of the end”; nor so far, at least in form, his allies exchanging witty remarks in the Palaces of Vienna and Berlin.
Once on French land, Napoléon was making all speed to reach Paris; all the time his son and his wife were on his mind. In Paris, he would take control of the reins of power and stabilise the general shaky mood of the nation. He ordered the coachman to whip up the horses and speed on, reckoning up each stage. Their speed was such that by the time they reached Meaux on December 18th, the front axle broke down and he had to ask the posting house master for his personal chaise. The two horses drawing the awkward two wheeled chaise galloped on through the half-finished Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel – a privilege reserved for the Emperor – before the sentries had time to stop them.
On the 18th, after a thirteen-day journey, Napoléon’s chaise pulled into the central entrance of the Tuileries just as the clock was striking the last quarter before midnight.
The guards took them for officers bearing dispatches and let them pass. Reaching the empress’ ground-floor apartments, Caulaincourt knocked, whereupon the Swiss Guard, who had been asleep, came to the door in his nightshirt, and was bewildered at the sight of two shaggy figures and was only assured of their identity after he recognized Caulaincourt, who had to give his name several times before he agreed to open the door for them. With this commotion, the menservants came up and gathered round the fur-clad figures, scrutinising their appearance; suddenly, overwhelmed with joy, one of them shouted: “It’s the Emperor!” Caulaincourt described their feeling as ‘ecstatically delighted’.
Not so was the quisling Talleyrand – although his vexatious remark on the future of the Empire was not far from the truth, for he had been diligently betraying his master and working with his enemies on his downfall – or his rancorous brother, Lucien who gloated over his brother’s misfortune, saying “The lightning wrath of heaven will inevitably strike him down should he persist in his blunders.”
Hortense, who was among the first to arrive at the Tuileries, asked the emperor whether the Bulletin published in the Moniteur describing the disastrous retreat was as bad as it looked. “Sadly, all I said was true,” replied Napoléon.
“Surely the Russians must have suffered as much as we did?”
“Certainly,” replied Napoléon, “but that does not console me.”
Napoléon was certainly not short of detractors both at home and abroad. In Italy, in Schonbrunn Palace, in Prussia, they winked and chuckled, gloating over the Emperor’s disaster. But Napoléon was not to be deterred. During his nine day retreat from Warsaw to Paris, his uncertain mood had given place to a revived, inflamed spirit. As soon as he took control of the reins of power, he would renew his grip on events from Warsaw to Dresden to Madrid. His remarkable self-confidence and never-ending productive work would engender confidence in the people. He never faltered in the face of disaster; his sangfroid, placid cool headedness, had helped his army to cross the Berezina against overwhelming odds. And now in Paris in January he imparted this confidence to the French. The Bourse, instead of falling, rose from 56 rente to 73. The French, forgetting the 29 Bulletin, talked instead of the Emperor’s swift four-day journey from Dresden to Paris – an extraordinary feat by an extraordinary man.
Meanwhile, at Vilna, Marshal Murat led the army back through Kovna, Königsberg and Elbing; at Elbing, on the pretext that he had to deal with unrest in his kingdom, he handed over the command to Eugene de Beauharnais, and on 18 January 1813 he returned to Naples. On being informed of Murat’s departure, Napoléon wrote, “He is a brave man on the battlefield, but feebler than a woman or a monk when the enemy is not in sight. He has no moral courage.” This letter was to Caroline. To Murat himself he wrote, “The title of king has turned your head. If you desire to preserve it … this title … you will have to conduct yourself differently from what you have done up to the present.”
At the first reception in the Tuileries, he utters the following controversial and memorable words:
“The apostles of the rights of man stand accused for all that has happened. They flattered people and declared rebellion to be a duty, attributing to it sovereignty it is incapable of wielding. The Iconoclasts destroyed respect for law, creating anarchy through their so called, ‘supremacy of an assembly’ which knew nothing of administration and law.”
He then ends his long-winded speech with the following words:
“To learn the merits and defects of legislation, we must study history. The state needs courageous officials; ‘the king is dead; long live the king!’; that was the watchword of our fathers. The phrase makes us realize the advantages of monarchy.”
Before he set out on the Russian Campaign, he had frankly explained his plans to Metternich: “The legislature belongs to me; all I need is to put the key of the deliberative chamber in my pocket – France has far more democracy than many other countries … when I return I will convert the Council of State and the Senate into an Upper House and a Lower House, most of whose members I shall nominate myself.
