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CHAPTER XVI.
RUSSIA AND THE INVASION OF 1812.
The circumstances in which
Alexander I, at the age of twenty-three, succeeded to the throne of Russia,
have already been described. His tutor, the Swiss La Harpe,
had imbued him with the idealistic spirit of the humanitarian philosophy of the
eighteenth century; and this tendency endured throughout his life. On the other
hand, in his father’s circle at Gatchina, Alexander had acquired a leaning towards
a pretentious militarism, and established friendly relations with Alexei Arakchéieff,
the chief representative of this new military school. Base and vulgar in
spirit, inhumanly hard and cruel, devoid of courage, but an absolutely
trustworthy servant, Arakchéieff was destined to be the curse of Alexander’s
reign.
The reforms which the new monarch introduced
affected only the organisation of the central
government, and left the fundamental evils of the Empire untouched. The
arbitrary power of a corrupt administration, under an absolute ruler, and the
servile condition of the peasants, remained as before. Alexander’s first
counsellors were the friends of his youth, Count Kochubei, Count Stroganoff,
Prince Czartoryski, and Novossiltzoff, who, like him, lived in a world of
ideals, the political ideals of western Europe. The last three were called the
Triumvirate. La Harpe’s restraining influence must
also be taken into account. Alexander’s discussions with his friends, in what
was called “a non-official committee”, embraced the entire policy of the
Empire, and showed traces of English and Polish influences. This committee
formed a plan for presenting Russia, on the coronation day, with a Bill of
Rights based on the English Habeas Corpus Act; but this scheme was never earned
out. The only change made was in 1802, when the Government Boards were replaced
by eight Ministries. The Emperor’s theoretical liberalism was accompanied by a
deep-rooted and obstinate adherence to autocracy. The powerful bureaucracy of
St Petersburg soon recognised that the new Tsar was
by no means inclined to allow it more than a superficial share in his unlimited
power. Those who understood his character regarded without alarm the plans
which Alexander was then revolving for the liberation
of the serfs. The Emperor loved the forms of freedom as people love a play. He
was pleased that his government should wear the appearance of liberty; but more
than the appearance he would not allow.
In June, 1807, began the period of Napoleonic
influence, which was extremely unpopular in Russia. The Russian nobility, for
all its French culture, was inwardly disaffected towards Napoleon. Alexander,
however, admired in him not only the commander of genius but also the great organiser. He at once perceived the immense advantage which
the modem French absolutism had over the old traditional absolutism of Russia;
it was the advantage of system over caprice, of organisation over anarchy. The Tsar determined to concentrate power in his own person, but
at the same time to transform the obsolete autocracy into a modem monarchy, by
combining with it some sort of popular representation. In January, 1808, he
appointed Arakchéieff Minister of War, that he might have at his side an
awe-inspiring figure of enormous energy, who would take off his shoulders the
detestable responsibilities of despotism. On the other hand, towards the end of
the same year, he gave the ablest of his state secretaries, Michael Speranski, supreme authority in initiating legislation. The
son of a poor country parson, but a man of great talents, Speranski rose from the position of pupil to that of teacher in the ecclesiastical
seminary of St Petersburg. By his capacity for work and his extensive
knowledge, he had already proved of great assistance to many courtiers, high
officials, and ministers, men like Kurakin, Troschinskii, and Kochubei. In Speranski the Emperor found a keen and logical intellect, fertile in political ideas, a
man who knew Russia, and was familiar with modern French statecraft.
During the years 1809-12, Speranski,
collaborating as Secretary of State with the Emperor, came to occupy a unique
position in Russia, one in fact superior to that of the ministers themselves. Yet
he never abused this enormous influence by turning it to his personal
advantage. The model for Speranski’s project of a Constitution
(1809) was the French Constitution of the year VIII (1799). He strove to
accommodate its principles to Russian conditions, so as to form, out of the
free owners of land and houses, a system of local self-government and a central
representation of the people—the so-called Gosudarstvennaia Duma or Supreme Diet. The initiative in legislation was to come from the
Emperor; but no law was to take effect until it had been drafted and sanctioned
by the Diet and subsequently approved by the Council of State and the Emperor.
Laws and institutions were of more importance than personalities in the eyes of
the reformer. Of all Speranski’s schemes, however,
the only one that was carried into effect was the organisation of the bureaucratic Council of State (Jan. 1810). To the end of his life,
Alexander nourished these plans of reform; for his inability to carry them out
he blamed the unfavourable conditions of the day and the immaturity of the nation. But,
when the first excitement of his reform projects had passed off, his real
interest and ambition were diverted to foreign politics.
It was Alexander’s favourite,
Prince Czartorvski, who first gave utterance to the Panslavonic idea in regard to the East. He made the
federation of all the Slavonic nations his final aim, hoping thereby to ensure
the resurrection of Poland. At Tilsit the deliverance of the Turkish provinces
in Europe from the Sultan’s yoke had been regarded as an eventual object of
policy. In the following years the annexation of Moldavia and Wallachia, and
even the partition of the Ottoman Empire, were the main subjects of discussion
between France and Russia. Early in 1808 Caulaincourt was commissioned to treat
with the Emperor Alexander and Count Rumiantzeff at
St Petersburg concerning an expedition to India, to be preceded by a partition
of Turkey. Russia was simultaneously invited to occupy Stockholm. Rumiantzeff brought forward Russia’s claim to
Constantinople, the Bosphorus, and the Dardanelles. For this, even Egypt and
Syria seemed to France an insufficient equivalent. Caulaincourt demanded at
least the Dardanelles or the Asiatic side of that strait, suggesting, as an
alternative, the conversion of Constantinople into an independent State under a
French prince. Amid such divergences, no agreement was possible. The scheme of
partition was wrecked on Napoleon’s jealousy of the aggrandisement which the possession of Constantinople would confer on Russia. Thus the first
rift was made in the Russo-French alliance.
Meanwhile Alexander had been carrying on, since
1806, a war with Turkey, which at the outset had been promoted by the intrigues
of French diplomacy. Finally the Tsar resolved, in case of victory, to annex
Moldavia and Wallachia. At first, the Russian commanders, Mikhelson and Prozorovskii, had but little success; it was only
under Prince Bagration in 1809, and the young Count Nikolai Kamenskoi in 1810,
that the Russians captured the fortresses of Brailoff,
Ismail, Silistria, and Rustchuk,
and gained two important victories. When, in 1811, the veteran general Kutusoff
took over the command, the war was quickly brought to an end. The new
commander-in-chief allowed the Turkish vizier to cross over to the northern
bank of the Danube, surrounded him in his camp at Slobodzeia,
and compelled the Turkish army to surrender. The Peace of Bucharest (May 28,
1812), was the result. Under pressure of the impending war with Napoleon,
Russia had to content herself with the acquisition of Bessarabia, by which the
river Pruth and the Kilia mouth of the Danube became the frontier.
At Tilsit, where the foundation of the
Russo-French alliance was laid, the Polish question had also been taken up.
Since the latter part of the eighteenth century, Polish patriots, in the hope
of reviving their political existence, had looked to France and Russia. After
Tilsit, however, they made no effort to conceal their expectation of obtaining
from Napoleon what Russia could not grant without reservations. For Napoleon,
Poland was only one more piece on the politico-military chess-board. Alexander,
unwilling to enrich himself at the expense of Prussia, conceived the idea of
creating a grand-duchy of Warsaw; and Napoleon adopted this suggestion. The
results of this agreement have already been described. What the Russian Emperor
feared was that, in the event of a re-establishment of the Polish kingdom, he
would be forced to cede to it the provinces which had once formed part of
Poland. He therefore regarded with a jealous eye Napoleon’s friendly attitude
towards the grand-duchy of Warsaw. The Peace of Vienna (1809) added to the
grand-duchy 1,500,000 inhabitants in eastern Galicia; while Russia gained, as
compensation, only about 500,000 in the district of Tamopol.
The Tsar’s anxiety led to the drafting, in January, 1810, of a convention with
France, directed against the aspirations of Poland. The kingdom of Poland was
never to be re-established; even the names “ Poland ” and “ Pole ” were never
to be applied to the former divisions and inhabitants of that kingdom.
Though this convention was not yet ratified, the
friendship between Napoleon and Alexander appeared for a time to have taken a
new lease of life. The French monarch even became a suitor for the hand of the
Grand Duchess Anna, sister of the Tsar. The wooing was, however, wrecked by the
hatred which the Empress Dowager, Maria Feodorovna, cherished for the Corsican
usurper. At the first sign of hesitation on the Russian side, Napoleon resolved
to anticipate a refusal by betrothing himself to a Habsburg princess. This
union was the signal for a radical change in his foreign relations. He refused
now to ratify the convention about Poland; and the Russo-French alliance
rapidly cooled. In order to win the Poles to his side, Alexander, at the
beginning of 1811, offered through Czartoryski to revive the kingdom of Poland,
on the understanding that the Tsar should bear the title of Polish King; the
rivers Dwina, Berezina, and Dnieper were to be the boundaries between the two
States. At the same time he discussed with Oginskii a
plan for constituting a grand-duchy of Lithuania out of the eight governments
of western Russia, in order to pave the way for a revival of the Polish
kingdom, which was to be linked to Russia by a personal union. In this contest
for the favour of Poland, Russia was once more
worsted. Alexander’s designs upon the grand-duchy of Warsaw were no secret for
his adversary, who began, early in 1811, to prepare for war.
Napoleon conceived that a war with Alexander,
like his former friendship, would enable him to give the coup de grace to British trade and influence. In order to bring his war with England to a speedy
and glorious end, Napoleon strove to increase the rigour of the Continental Blockade, especially in the Baltic ports. In pursuance of
this policy, the duchy of Oldenburg was incorporated with France in January,
1811; and an uncle of the Tsar was thus dethroned. The Continental Blockade had already been very detrimental
to Russian trade with England. The exports of raw material fell off; the
balance of trade turned against Russia; the value of her paper currency was
greatly diminished. To counteract these misfortunes, neutral ships were allowed
to participate in Russian colonial trade; and an attempt was made, in the
tariff of December 31, 1810, to check the import of French luxuries.
Mutual recriminations took place, each sovereign
reproaching the other with preparing for war. In his negotiations with Tchernitcheff, early in 1812, Napoleon insisted that Russia
should combine with France in severe repressive measures against British and
American trade. Alexander replied by demanding that the French should evacuate
Prussia and withdraw beyond the Oder. Napoleon now regarded war as inevitable.
On May 9 he left Paris and went to Dresden, where many German Princes, headed
by the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia, paid court to him. He had
counted on a simultaneous attack on Russia by Sweden and Turkey, but was
disappointed by Sweden’s rapprochement to Russia, and still more by the
Peace of Bucharest. War with Sweden had lasted for a year and a half; but the
Peace of Frederikshamn (1809), which ceded Finland to
Russia, had left no lasting soreness between the two Power's. By his occupation
of Swedish Pomerania in January, 1812, Napoleon drove the Swedes into the arms
of the Tsar. The result was a rapprochement between the Crown Prince,
formerly Marshal Bernadotte, now Regent in Sweden, and Alexander I. Early in
April they concluded a treaty, under which Sweden was to be compensated for
the loss of Finland by the prospect of obtaining Norway. In July Russia also
concluded an agreement with England and Spain. Her whole strength thus became
available for the decisive struggle.
If Alexander was to undertake a war against
Napoleon, he required a victim on whom to shift the responsibility for the
French alliance, in order to win back to his side the patriotic feeling of his
subjects. A treatise “ On the old and the new Russia,” written by the
cultivated historian Karamsin, emphatically stated
that the Tsar’s reforms were the cause of the general dissatisfaction, in that
they tended to weaken and destroy autocratic government. A pretext was thus supplied.
Alexander determined to sacrifice Speranski in order
to satisfy the Conservatives, and, in particular, the Old-Russian party, and to
stimulate the warlike enthusiasm of the country. A coalition formed by the
enemies of the unlucky reformer was joined bv Arakcheieff, Count Rostopchin, Balashoff,
Minister of Police, and the Swedish Baron Armfelt.
But all these were only tools of the Tsar, who used them to entangle Speranski in the toils of a pretended plot, in order to
accumulate on his head the guilt of the detested reforms, and of the Francophil policy of the last five years.
The 29th of March, 1812, the day on which Speranski fell and was banished to Nijnii-Novgorod,
marks a turning-point in Alexander’s career, for he now entered deliberately
upon a life-and-death contest. Vice-Admiral Shishkoff,
the narrow-minded representative of Old-Russian tendencies in language and
literature, was appointed Secretary of the Council of State in Speranski’s place, and entrusted with the task of issuing
manifestoes designed to bring together the Tsar and his people. About this
time, Alexander’s mental and spiritual development began to take a turn towards
faith in the Bible and a pious mysticism, which added strength to his resolve.
The French Emperor appeared in his eyes the embodied principle of evil; and it
seemed to him that he might be the instrument of Providence destined for
Napoleon’s overthrow.
Napoleon had been pushing forward his
preparations since the beginning of 1811; and thus it was possible for him to
bring into the field such an army as modern Europe had never before seen. The
total strength of the Grand Army, with its baggage trains, amounted to about
680,000 men, including 500,000 infantry and about 100,000 cavalry. Of this
force, the French composed rather less than half; the rest was made up of the
troops of the allied States, the Italian, Illyrian, Polish, and Rhenish contingents,
and Austrian and Prussian auxiliaries. These troops, exclusive of the Imperial
Guard, and of the Austrians under Prince Schwarzenberg, formed eleven army-corps
and four divisions of cavalry. The French troops consisted chiefly of the
Imperial Guard, commanded by Marshals Lefebvre, Mortier, and Bessières; the
first four army-corps, under Marshals Davout, Oudinot,
Ney, and Eugene, Viceroy of Italy; and the first three corps of cavalry
reserves, under Murat, King of Naples. Poles, Bavarians, Saxons, and Westphalians,
under Poniatovski, Gouvion Saint-Cyr, Reynier, and Vandamme (whose
place was afterwards taken by Junot), formed the next four army-corps. The
fourth corps of the cavalry reserve was composed of Poles, Saxons, and
Westphalians, under Latour-Maubourg. To the tenth
army-corps, under Macdonald, belonged also the Prussian auxiliaries. These were
the troops destined for immediate service at the opening of the campaign.
Their total strength, at the passage of the Niemen, amounted to 450,000 men.
The ninth army-corps, under Marshal Victor, at first remained behind in Prussia; a considerable body was afterwards separated from this corps, and, with the
Neapolitans, who came up later, was placed under the command of Augereau, as an
eleventh army-corps. The reinforcements brought up in the course of the
campaign amounted to at least 140,000 men; to these must be added the troops
with the siege-park and baggage trains. In all, nearly 610,000 men, with 1242
field-pieces and 130 siege-guns, crossed the Russian frontier in the year 1812,
besides officials, servants, and drivers.
Owing to the large number of horses, the opening
of the campaign was postponed till it was possible to find grass. Napoleon had
perceived that the provisioning of such an enormous body of troops would
constitute the chief difficulty, and had made special regulations accordingly. But,
as the commissariat authorities were by no means equal to their task, the
troops, during their march to Moscow, had to fall back on the system of requisitions,
a system which acted very detrimentally on discipline. Moreover, the measures
taken for replacing losses were inadequate; while, owing to the size of the
army and the large area covered by the operations, Napoleon could not make his
personal influence everywhere felt. His lieutenants were but poor substitutes.
On principle, he had trained his generals to habits of dependence, and even the
highest of these, such as Murat, and Berthier, Chief of the Staff, were by no
means born commanders; moreover, the Marshals declined to obey anyone but the
Emperor. Napoleon himself was no longer, either physically or mentally, the man
he had been. Corpulent and in poor health, he was less capable of action and
endurance than before. Mentally, also, he had suffered a great change. Having
hitherto succeeded in all his enterprises, he had lost all sense of the
attainable. In his determination to be at once Emperor, Generalissimo, Chief of
the Staff, and Minister of War, he had taken upon himself a burden too great
even for his capacity. All these things considered, it is clear that the Grand
Army bore within itself the seeds of dissolution.
Although Russia had also been arming since the
beginning of 1811, she was unable, at the outset, to oppose equal forces to
Napoleon. The available troops were formed into three armies of very unequal
strength. The first army of the west, under the command of Barclay de Tolly,
Minister of War, contained over 100,000 men; the second, under Prince
Bagration, was only about a third of that number. The third, or reserve army,
under General Tormassoff, was about 40,000 strong.
Thus the total strength of the first line was 175,000 men, with 938 guns; to
which may be added 18,000 Cossacks. On the other hand, the Russians could
reckon on considerable reinforcements. In the first place, there was the army
of the Danube, under Admiral Tchitchagoff, now set
free by the Treaty of Bucharest, and numbering over 50,000 men. There were also
the troops from Finland, and two reserve-corps on the Dwina and the Pripet.
Thus, the troops in the second line numbered, in all, rather more than 100,000.
In the third line have to be reckoned the recruits, the militia, and the
Cossacks. Yet the total strength of all the forces which were gradually brought
up to repel the French attack, amounted in the end to little more than 400,000
men.
The Russian army was not only considerably inferior
to the French in respect of numbers, but it possessed no commander in any wise
comparable with Napoleon. Kutusoff and Bennigsen had already been defeated by
him. Kutusoff, now physically a wreck, had recently fallen into disfavour with the Tsar for having acted contrary to his
wishes in delaying the peace with Turkey. Bennigsen, who was given to intrigue,
was, as a German and one of the murderers of Paul, very unpopular with the
national party. Alexander was therefore obliged to take over the supreme
command himself. Requiring military advice, he unfortunately selected a
theorist, General von Phull, whose plans fell to
pieces at the first trial. When, in July, 1812, Alexander left the army,
Barclay de Tolly, as Minister of War, assumed the supreme command. An honourable man and a capable general, but without conspicuous
talent, and a foreigner to boot, Barclay was hardly equal to his task; nor was
his strategy, though correct in the circumstances, understood by his
subordinates.
Alexander, from fear of his great opponent, was
inclined to adopt the purely defensive plans of his counsellor, General von Phull. On the assumption that Napoleon would cross the
Niemen at Grodno, whence he could advance upon either Vilna or Minsk, an army
was to be opposed to him in both these directions. The first army was
afterwards to retire upon the entrenched camp at Drissa the other was to operate against the enemy’s flanks and rear, or else to
withdraw to Bobruisk. Phull’s plan was approved by
the Emperor; orders were therefore sent from Vilna, which Alexander entered on
April 26, to prepare the camp at Drissa. The first
army of the west, under Barclay, was already concentrated about Vilna; the
second, under Bagration, gathered soon afterwards at Volkovisk; Tormassoff, with the reserve army, remained at Lutsk
in Volynia.
Meanwhile it became clear that the enemy would
cross the Niemen at Kovno. Napoleon had prepared no detailed plan of campaign;
he had merely drawn the outlines, leaving the details to the decision of the
moment. His intention, at the outset, was essentially as follows:—to break
through the enemy’s right wing with his reinforced left; then to fall upon the
communications of the enemy’s left and centre, so as
to separate Barclay and Bagration. After Napoleon had himself reconnoitred the Niemen on June 23, several bridges were
thrown across the river, a little above the town of Kovno, after dark. In the
small hours of the 24th the army began to cross; next day the passage of the
main column was practically completed, and the advance upon Vilna begun. Orders
were sent to King Jerome to march towards Grodno and follow hard upon the heels
of Bagration.
On the 26th the Tsar left Vilna. As Barclay at
this moment had only two infantry corps at his disposal, and his advance-guard
could no longer join him, he also began (on the 28th) his retirement on Sventziany and Drissa. On the
same day Vilna was taken by the French. The advance of the French army was
designed to separate the two Russian armies of the west. To carry out this
plan, Davout advanced upon Minsk, there to lie in wait for Bagration, whom
Jerome was to drive in his direction. The plan, however, miscarried, owing to
Jerome’s failure to pursue Bagration closely. There were excuses for Jerome;
but Napoleon was so angry with his brother that he placed him under the command
of Marshal Davout. Deeply hurt, Jerome left the army and returned to Cassel.
Meanwhile Davout had continued his march, and thus compelled Bagration to turn
aside towards Bobruisk.
Napoleon himself had remained stationary with
the centre at Vilna. He utilised his residence in the capital of Lithuania to set up a provisional government
there, and turn its military resources to account. In his regulation of Polish
affairs he committed a fatal error. At the end of June the Polish Diet had met
at Warsaw; it had declared itself representative of confederated Poland,
proclaimed the restoration of that kingdom, and set about uniting Poland and
Lithuania. Napoleon, however, was anxious not to offend Austria and Prussia, or
to make peace with Russia impossible ; he therefore refused to approve
definitely the decisions of the Diet, thereby damping the ardour of the Poles.
It was some time before Napoleon grasped the
failure of his plans against Bagration; when at length it became clear to him,
he decided to send forward to the Dwina those divisions of the centre which had hitherto been detained at Vilna. On the
right wing, Davout, who had now the command of Jerome’s army, received orders
to proceed towards Mogileff. Napoleon himself left
Vilna in the night of July 16-17. By his inactivity at that place the Emperor
had lost much valuable time; and his operations, so far, had produced no
satisfactory result. In spite of great sacrifices, he had only succeeded in
hindering Barclay’s junction with Bagration. And this was, after all, a
doubtful advantage; for it was to Napoleon’s interest that the two generals
should combine and do battle with him as soon as possible.
Meanwhile the first army of the west had effected
its retreat to the camp at Drissa. Alexander,
trusting to Phillis counsels, had at first intended to make his stand against
the French army at this point; but he was soon apprised of the strategic
disadvantages of this position and the defective fortification of the camp. The
hollowness of Phull's counsels was now revealed to
the Tsar. Alive to the probability of his left wing being surrounded, Alexander
now determined on continuing the retreat as far as Vitebsk, and there effecting
a union with the second army of the west. Bagration was ordered to march to
Vitebsk by Mogileff, there to join forces with
Barclay. After the first army of the west had returned to the right bank of the
Dwina, leaving behind it Wittgenstein’s corps, now raised to 25,000 men, it was
only about 82,000 strong. The march from Drissa to
Vitebsk by way of Polotsk began on July 16.
Wittgenstein’s corps remained behind between Druia and Drissa to guard the St Petersburg road. The
course of events having shaken the confidence of the Tsar, he now (July 18)
decided to follow the advice of his intimates, and to betake himself to Moscow,
where, in the centre of the kingdom, he might
superintend the conduct of the national defence. From
Moscow was issued the order to the northern and central provinces for a general
levy. The Tsar’s declaration that the war was a national war, and his avowed
intention to conclude no peace so long as one hostile soldier remained on
Russian soil, kindled great enthusiasm throughout the Empire.
On July 20 Davout had taken Mogileff with but slight opposition. The Marshal was convinced of the necessity of
barring Bagration’s way, in spite of his superiority,
and for this purpose concentrated his forces at the village of Saltanovka, south of Mogileff. On
the 23rd Raievskii, at Bagration’s orders, attacked
him in this position, but without success; nor did Bagration venture to renew
the attack. On the contrary, he withdrew across the Dnieper and marched on
Smolensk, which he reached on August 2. Napoleon had meanwhile begun his
advance by Glubokoie upon Vitebsk, and thus
frustrated Barclay’s intention of marching from Vitebsk by way of Orsha to join the second army. At Ostrovno,
on July 25, there was a smart encounter between Osterman and the French
van-guard under Murat, who forced the Russians to retire. The news of Bagration’s failure at Mogileff now forced Barclay to decide on retreat, an operation which was successfully
carried out. On August 1 the first army of the west reached Smolensk, where, on
the next day, the junction with Bagration was effected. Napoleon now gave up
the pursuit, and returned with the Guards to Vitebsk.
Here he decided to give the army two weeks’
rest, in order to rally the stragglers and establish magazines. Though
comparatively few of his troops had come within sight of the enemy, the Grand
Army had already lost more than 100,000 men. Nevertheless Napoleon was firmly
determined to continue his reckless advance. He did not yet perceive that the
limitless expanses of Russia were unsuited to his strategy; and this mistake
was the chief cause of his enormous losses. The idea of postponing the
completion of the campaign till the next year had some attractions; but many
considerations made against it. Not only the supremacy of France in Europe, but
Napoleon’s own position in the eyes of the French nation, depended on his
advance. The Emperor needed before all things a conspicuous success in order to
justify himself, and to maintain his prestige. His whole plan of campaign was
therefore founded on a brilliant offensive, rather than on regular methods of
warfare, in which defensive action would take a certain part. Besides, the
means at his disposal were such that he might well hope to bring the war to a
rapid conclusion with one crushing blow. Napoleon therefore decided to continue
his advance by way of Smolensk to Moscow, following the line taken by the
Russians in their retreat.
The two Russian armies now united at Smolensk
numbered 113,000 men, with 8000 Cossacks. The first army, under Barclay, was
posted on the right bank of the Dnieper; the second, under Bagration, on the
left. Both the Tsar and the army, and particularly Bagration, von Toll, and
Grand Duke Constantine, were now very anxious to take the offensive. Early in
August, Barclay attempted forward movements against the French centre at Rudnia, and upon Poretchie; but his action was undecided, and the Russian
offensive came to nothing. Napoleon now determined to advance (August 13). His
plan was to march on Smolensk by the left bank of the Dnieper, and, by
capturing that place, to embarrass the Russian retreat upon Moscow. On the 14th
the whole army set out in one great column.
The news of its advance compelled both Barclay
and Bagration to march as quickly as possible on August 16 to the aid of
Raievskii, who was holding Smolensk with about 13,000 men. Murat and Ney
reached that place early on the 16th; Napoleon arrived about 9 a.m.; and Davout was approaching. An
energetic attack was imperative, if the French were to take the place before
the arrival of the Russian army. Napoleon, however, decided to await the rest
of his forces, and limited his efforts that day to a useless cannonade. This
delay gave the two Russian commanders time to come up. But the expected battle
did not take place; 20,000 men, under Dokhturoff,
were left to hold Smolensk; the rest of his army Barclay intended to withdraw
as soon as Bagration had secured the road to Moscow.
Napoleon, expecting the Russians to make a sally
from Smolensk, let the early hours of the 17th slip by; it was 3 p.m. before the attack began.
Poniatovski, Ney, and Davout advanced almost simultaneously. After about three
hours’ fighting, the French succeeded in taking the suburbs, but were unable to
penetrate further; their guns failed to effect a breach in the walls. A violent
conflict raged till nightfall. Barclay, knowing that the way to Moscow was now
secure, believed himself justified in evacuating the town; for, if the French
should cross the river above Smolensk, the Russian army might be in a very
dangerous position. But Napoleon, who had intended to renew the attack on the
18th, did nothing that day but concentrate his army and prepare for the passage
of the Dnieper. His behaviour before Smolensk
indicated a great diminution of mental energy.
The bridges having been restored early on the
19th, Ney at once crossed over to the right bank of the Dnieper, and was
followed in the course of the day by Murat, Davout, and Junot. The French
pressed hard on the retreating enemy, and there were fierce engagements at Valutina-Gora and Lubina; but, as
Napoleon returned to Smolensk and Junot did not attack, Murat and Ney were
unable to prevent the Russians from effecting their retreat. Had Napoleon
remained at Smolensk, he would have been able to continue the campaign in the
following spring with good prospects. The hope of winning a decisive battle and
of making peace at Moscow induced him to press forward; but in extending his
advance beyond Smolensk he committed perhaps the gravest error of the whole
war. The means at his disposal were no longer adequate to such a task. To
provide for the advance it became necessary to establish a strong reserve at
Smolensk. The force under Victor was therefore summoned up; it crossed the
Niemen at Kovno on September 4, and arrived at Smolensk on the 27th, over
25,000 strong. Napoleon himself did not leave the town till August 25. Robbing
and burning as it went, the French army marched forwards across Old Russia.
The feeling in the Russian army and the
difficulty of his own position had now convinced Barclay of the necessity of a
battle. He intended to bring on a decisive engagement at Tzarevo-Zaimische,
where the Russian army had arrived on August 29. But in the meantime his
retention of command had become impossible. National pride, irritated by recent
events, demanded loudly that he should give way to a Russian. Yielding to this
demand, Alexander appointed General Kutusoff (recently raised to the rank of
Prince) commander-in-chief of the Russian forces. Neither personal inclination
nor confidence on the part of the Tsar had anything to do with Kutusoff’s appointment; it was a political necessity.
Kutusoff was sixty-seven years old. Physically
weakened by age, he lacked the mental energy required for contending with
Napoleon, but he had talent enough to play a Fabian part. His chief merit was
that he could see when conditions were turning in his favour,
and knew that, if the worst came to the worst, the winter would help him to
expel the French. Endowed with much native cunning, he felt confidence in his
ability to conquer the great man, by guile if not by battle. Barclay had saved
the army in spite of itself. The enemy’s numerical superiority, which, at the
outset, had stood in the ratio of three to one, now stood only at that of five
to four. Kutusoff knew how to turn this service of his predecessor to good
account. The new commander-in-chief joined the army on August 29. He had to fight
a battle, since that was the object of his appointment. But, as the position
chosen by Barclay at Tzarevo-Zaimische was open to
criticism, the retreat was continued on the 31st as far as Borodino, where the
army arrived on September 3.
In the expectation that the new Russian
commander would accept battle, Napoleon gave his army two days of repose
(September 2, 3) at Gjatsk. On the 4th the advance
was continued. A strong redoubt had been constructed near the village of Shevardino, in front of the Russian left. On September 5,
Napoleon launched his advance-guard against this redoubt, which was defended by
Prince Gortchakoff; Davout also took part in the
attack. Later, Poniatovski, on the extreme right of the French, succeeded in
turning the enemy’s left, whereupon the Russians abandoned the redoubt and
retired after nightfall upon their main position. Even after the losses of the
last few days, the two Russian armies still numbered 103,800 men, with 640
guns, exclusive of the Cossacks and the militia. The French army was between
120,000 to 130,000 strong, with 587 guns. The Russian position formed a shallow
convex curve. On the right, the line followed the bank of the Kalotcha, a tributary of the Moskva; in the centre, near the village of Borodino, it fell back a little
from the former, and then bent round by Semenovskoie to Utitza on the old Smolensk road. While the right wing was unassailable, the left,
being without natural protection, was a weak point in the position; yet the
first army, forming the bulk of the Russian force, was drawn up on the right,
while the weaker second army was posted on the left. The latter position, not
being covered by the Kalotcha, was defended by
trenches. Raievskii’s battery was posted to the right
of this position, on the high ground between Borodino and Semenovskoie;
on its left, between Semenovskoie and Utitza, three small entrenchments had been thrown up.
Napoleon had not been able to obtain clear information as to the ground, and
supposed that Raievskii’s battery and Bagration’s entrenchments stood on the same ridge. The
Emperor decided on a frontal attack ; Poniatovski alone, with his weak corps,
was to turn the Russian left.
The battle of Borodino, or of the Moskva, began
at 6 a.m. on September 7. On the
French left, the Viceroy advanced first and took the village of Borodino; lost
it, and took it again; then crossed the Kalotcha with
the greater part of his troops, and deployed against Raievskii’s battery. About 10.30 a.m. this
position was taken; but the Russians, reinforced by General Yermoloff, soon succeeded in recapturing the entrenched
battery, and in repulsing the enemy with great loss. Meanwhile Davout, with
the divisions of Dessaix and Compans,
had advanced at 6 a.m. against Bagration’s entrenchments. Round these there raged for
hours a fierce struggle, with varying results. On Davout’s left, Ney’s corps
and Friant’s division took part; Junot filled up the space between Davout and
Poniatovski. About 11.30 a.m. the
French succeeded in finally capturing the entrenchments, already thrice won and
lost, and in driving back the second army with great loss over the depression
of Semenovskoie, where part of the reserves came to
its aid. It had lost nearly all its senior officers, Bagration himself being
mortally wounded. Kutusoff remained inactive the whole time at Gorki, far
behind the line of battle, leaving Barclay, Bagration, and Yermoloff to their own devices.
An attack by Murat’s cavalry failed; and it was
past midday when Friant succeeded in taking Semenovskoie—a
success which forced the Russians in this part of the field back to the edge of
the forest. But Murat, Davout, and Ney believed themselves unable to advance
further without reinforcements; and these Napoleon refused to send. The Emperor
was suffering from a severe chill, and stayed for the most part far in the rear
by the Shevardino redoubt. About midday, Platoff’s Cossacks and Uvaroff’s cavalry vainly attempted, by outflanking the French left, to divert the enemy’s
attention from the Russian centre. The Raievskii
battery was captured by the French soon after the loss of Semenovskoie;
and the whole Russian centre fell back behind the
depression of Goritzkii. About 4 p.m. the battle gradually died out, in
consequence of the complete exhaustion of the troops on both sides. Only on
the French right Poniatovski continued fighting till nearly 6 p.m.
The losses on both sides were enormous. The
French lost over 28,000 men, the Russians half of their troops of the line.
Napoleon had himself to thank for the fact that the result of the battle did
not justify these sacrifices. If he had called up his Guards, who were still
20,000 strong, he might have annihilated the Russian army. Kutusoff had
intended to continue the battle the next day; but, in view of his losses, he
abandoned this intention, and on September 8, before daybreak, began his
retreat. Napoleon having withdrawn his advanced troops after the battle was
over, the Russians were able to feel that they were not defeated; the
commander-in-chief even claimed a victory.
The French Emperor remained at Mojaisk till September 12; Kutusoff meanwhile continued his
retreat as far as the village of Fili. At a council of war, held on the 13th,
Bennigsen wished to renew the offensive, but Barclay was of the opposite
opinion. His advice was adopted by Kutusoff; and the retreat was resumed in the
direction of Riazan. The army retired through Moscow, and was followed by
nearly the whole population of the capital. Out of 250,000 inhabitants only
about 15,000 remained behind; among them many strangers, especially French, and
the dregs of the population, besides thousands of wounded Russians. To cover
the retreat, Miloradovitch remained behind with the
rear-guard. Murat and Sebastiani being very anxious
to occupy Moscow intact, he demanded and obtained an armistice of some hours,
which enabled him to withdraw undisturbed (Sept. 14). With him went the
military governor of the city, Count Rostopchin. During the afternoon of the
same day, Napoleon, who had vainly waited for a deputation from the
authorities, made his entry into the forsaken capital.
The abandonment of the city produced a strange
and disquieting effect on the French army. Several fires broke out on the
evening of the 14th, in different quarters of the city; but these were
attributed to accident. On the following evening a great part of the city was
in flames; a few days more, and three-fourths of the houses were in ashes.
Napoleon, who had established himself in the Kremlin on the morning of September
15, was on the following day obliged to make his escape through the burning
buildings; he took up his quarters outside the city in the Petrovskii palace. Not until the 18th, when the fire had abated, did Napoleon return
through the smoking ruins to the Kremlin. Moscow was burnt neither by Napoleon
nor by Count Rostopchin. Probably, the fire was in part accidental, and due to
plunderers, both Russian and French ; in part the deliberate work of
patriotically-minded inhabitants. It began in the shops and cornmagazines,
along the outer wall of the Kremlin, and around the Krasnaia,
a public square hard by. On the 16th the fire was at its height. The noise of
the flames resembled the roaring of the sea; the sky glowed; and it was
possible to read by night within three or four leagues of Moscow, Robbery went
hand in hand with fire. It was not so much the French
themselves as their allies, the Rhenish troops and the Poles, who displayed the
most brutality and greed. Every corner was ransacked, under the pretext of
saving something from the flames. The victors turned the churches into stables
for their horses, chopped up for firewood the panels adorned with ikons, and
used the altars for dinner-tables. A slaughter-house was set up in the Petrovskii convent; and the conventual church was turned
into a butcher’s shop. The gold plate of the Cathedral of the Assumption and
other churches was melted down. The relics of St Philip were scattered on the
church-floor.
But neither fire nor plunder could bring the
enemy to terms; and the approach of winter warned Napoleon to abandon the
capital for a more secure position. Retreat, however, meant a confession of
failure; and this he was anxious to avoid. He therefore remained in Moscow so
long as there appeared any hope of peace. But Alexander was firmly resolved to
make no peace so long as a single hostile soldier remained on Russian soil; he
would rather let his beard grow and eat potatoes with the serfs. Kutusoff,
feeling that the unfavourable impression produced by
the Russian retirement must be effaced, adopted the advice of Toll, and
resolved to change the direction of the retreat from Riazan to Tula or Kaluga.
The main army, therefore, returning to the right bank of the Moskva, marched on
September 17 by way of Podolsk to the old Kaluga road, and on the 21st took up
a position on the right bank of the Pakhra, near Krasnaia-Pakhra.
Napoleon had ordered Murat to pursue the enemy
on the road to Riazan with a strong advance-guard; but that general, in spite
of his strength in cavalry, had completely lost touch with the Russians. About
Sept. 21 Napoleon heard that the Russian army was posted on the road to Tula,
and that the Cossacks were threatening the French line of retreat on Mojaisk. He therefore despatched Poniatovski and Bessières, one after the other, in the direction of Podolsk and
Kaluga, to meet the enemy. In the Russian headquarters a general attack was
feared, in consequence of which it was decided, on the 26th, to continue the
retreat as far as Tarutino, beyond the river Nara.
There the army remained for three weeks, receiving reinforcements which raised
the number of regular troops to 97,000 men. An advance-guard, under Miloradovitch, was now formed; while Tormassoff,
who arrived on October 20, took over the command of the main army.
Meanwhile guerrilla warfare began to assume
serious proportions. Early in September, Denis Davydoff,
a lieutenant-colonel of hussars, began to organise the partisan forces. Before long, uhlans, dragoons, and Cossacks, under Davydoff, Dorokhoff, Figner, and Seslavin, swarmed
round the hostile army, seized its provision convoys, destroyed or captured
French detachments in the rear, and drove the French garrisons from the towns.
The peasants flew to arms, formed bands, and seized the French spies,
marauders, and stragglers, whom they slaughtered without mercy.
Napoleon had let September pass in complete
inactivity. His position was growing worse every day; and he felt that, in
order to enforce peace, something must be done, and that quickly. Early in
October he formed a plan for a demonstration in force against St Petersburg ;
but, finding his generals were against it, he let it drop. As Alexander did not
beg for peace, Napoleon was forced to take the first step himself. On October 5
he sent General Lauriston to the Russian headquarters, to open negotiations;
but, in so doing, he only betrayed the untenability of his own position,
without getting any nearer to peace. In the end, therefore, he decided on
retreat. It is true that, apart from fodder, which had run low, there was
still, in spite of reckless waste, a large quantity of provisions in Moscow.
The difficulty of provisioning the army was chiefly felt in regard to the
troops outside the city, especially those of the advance-guard. As to numbers,
the army, in spite of reinforcements, was, on the evacuation of Moscow, reduced
to 108,000 men and 569 guns. Napoleon, at the outset, did not intend to retreat
beyond Smolensk. The natural line of retreat was by way of Volokolamsk, Zubtzoff, and Beloi to
Vitebsk; it passed through a poor country, but one unravaged by war. But to
choose this route would have implied a confession of fear. It was in accordance
with Napoleon’s character that he decided upon the route by Kaluga to Smolensk.
On the morning of October 18 Murat suffered a
repulse at Vinkovo, opposite the Russian camp at Tarutino. Though the Russian success was of slight
importance, Napoleon at once gave orders for the retreat. The same evening the
greater part of the army bivouacked on the old road to Kaluga. A strong
detachment under Mortier was temporarily left behind in Moscow, for Napoleon
wished to make it appear that his return to the capital was still possible. The
cavalry horses were in very bad case; but the most serious symptom was the
falling-off in discipline. The French host resembled a horde of nomads rather
than an army; men, horses, and waggons were loaded
with booty. The arrangements for the ammunition and for the clothing and
provisioning of the troops were utterly inadequate.
Napoleon had selected for his line of retreat
the new road to Kaluga by Fominskoie, on which, by
hastening his pace, he might hope to get past the Russian army at Tarutino; but he had actually struck into the old road
which goes through Tarutino itself, in order to
anticipate a possible attack on the part of Kutusoff. The latter, however, did
not advance further; so, on October 20, the French army turned to the right to Fominskoie. On the night of October 22-23 Mortier also
evacuated Moscow. He had been directed by Napoleon to destroy the Kremlin and
all the public buildings except the Foundling Hospital; but he carried out the
order in a very superficial way.
The Russian generals were very badly informed as
to the enemy’s movements. It was not till the night of October 22-23 that they
had definite news of the flank march of the French army from the old to the new
Kaluga road; whereupon it was decided to head off* the enemy at Malo-Yaroslavetz. On the 24th, at 5 a.m., Dokhturoff reached that
place, and finding the French in occupation, at once attacked. After some hours
of indecisive fighting, the Viceroy Eugene arrived with the rest of his troops,
who were followed by the Guards and Davout’s corps. A little later the Russian
main army also came up, Raievskii first, and then KutusofiF himself. The struggle for the burning town lasted till 11 p.m. ; eventually the French succeeded
in driving the Russians out of the place. Kutusoff fell back a little during
the night; but he had attained his end, and barred the road to Kaluga against
his opponents. Napoleon had either to force his way through, or to retreat to Mojaisk and thence to Smolensk through an exhausted and
desert country.
After long vacillation, and much reconnoitring and consultation, the Emperor, on October 26,
formed the momentous decision to retreat upon Mojaisk—a
course which meant nothing short of destruction for his army. On the same day,
Kutusoff, perceiving, as he thought, in all the movements of the French army an
offensive directed against Kaluga, also gave orders to retreat. Toll and the
British commissioner, General Wilson, in vain urged the commander-in-chief to
fight a decisive battle. Kutusoff hoped that the Grand Army would melt away of
its own accord, and preferred to build a golden bridge for his opponent.
Moreover, he was by no means persuaded that the complete destruction of
Napoleon and his army would really be a benefit for the world; he feared that
the heritage of the French Emperor might fall, not to Russia, but to Great
Britain. Consequently, at the last moment, Napoleon found the hindrance to his
retreat by way of Medyn removed. But his power of
decision was already impaired by consciousness of failure. He fell back upon a
compromise, and drew off his troops on the road by Borovsk,
thus taking a circuitous course, with all the disadvantages incident to such a
route, which he might have avoided by marching straight on Mojaisk.
Winter, which this year had been slow in coming,
now set in. By the end of October the men were shivering by the bivouac fires
at Velichevo, with nine degrees of frost. Provisions
were coming to an end ; the ranks were thinning, the men fatigued; the Cossacks
became bolder in their attacks. Serious news reached Napoleon at Viazma : Tchitchagoff had driven Schwarzenberg
back to Brest; Saint-Cyr had evacuated Polotsk; and
Victor had hurried from Smolensk to his relief. The Grand Army itself was in
peril. Napoleon alone, with the Guards and the Westphalian troops, had outstripped
his pursuers. The main Russian army was close to Ney at Viazma. Miloradovitch clung to the flanks of Eugene,
Poniatovski, and Davout; Platoff and his Cossacks pressed
on their rear. On November 3 Miloradovitch had
advanced from the south towards the main road; his cavalry encountered the head
of Davout’s column, already hard pressed by Platoff.
Eugene and Poniatovski were obliged to turn back to his assistance; but the
former vainly tried to beat off the Russian infantry approaching from the
south. Thereupon the French generals determined to continue the retreat toward Viazma ; it was carried out amid incessant attacks. The
French troops passed through Viazma in disorder; Ney
was the last to leave the neighbourhood of the
burning town.
For the next few days the march to Smolensk went
on without a halt. Want and disintegration now reached a terrible pitch. Horseflesh
had long composed the almost exclusive diet of the troops ; the Guards alone
received a small ration of meal. On November 4 it began to snow; two days
later the ground was covered, and the roads became slippery with ice; the
thermometer fell to 5° Fahrenheit. The soldiers were attacked with a strange
sickness. A man would suddenly look as if he were drunk, stagger, fall down in
the snow, and die. On November 7 fifty men of Ney’s corps perished in this way.
On November 9 Napoleon arrived at Smolensk.
There he heard that Vitebsk was taken by the Russians, and that Eugene’s corps
had been attacked by Platoff while crossing the Vop, and had lost heavily in retreating to Smolensk. In
Smolensk efforts were made to provide the different corps with the necessaries
of life; but, as the distribution was made without respect to circumstances,
many of the troops, particularly the stragglers, were neglected, and through
sheer hunger committed violent excesses. In spite of all this the Emperor
succeeded in bringing his effective force up to 49,000 men ; and he still hoped
to be able to get the army into winter quarters on the Dwina and the Dnieper.
With this intention he ordered the Poles, the Westphalians under Junot, and the
Legion of the Vistula, with the trophies of war, to go ahead of him, on the
high road to Krasnoi; he himself left Smolensk in his
carriage, on November 14, with the Guards and the cavalry.
The Russian main army still numbered over 50,000
men. Kutusoff might very well have appeared at Krasnoi by November 15. Instead of this, he kept back his troops for a day’s rest; and
it was not till the afternoon of that day that he sent forward Miloradovitch with the advance-guard to the main road;
while Napoleon concentrated the Guards, the Legion of the Vistula, and Junot’s
troops at Krasnoi. From some prisoners the Emperor
learnt (November 16) that Kutusoff1, with his whole army, was in the neighbourhood, and boldly resolved to wait for the
Viceroy, Davout, and Ney, at Krasnoi. Intimidated by
the presence of Napoleon, Kutusoff, in spite of his overwhelming superiority,
advanced but slowly. It was late in the afternoon of the 16th before there was
any fighting, when the Viceroy approached with his slender force from Korytnia. Thanks to Miloradovitch’s excessive caution, the
Kutusoff, having let the French escape, left Miloradovitch to pursue them with the advance-guard alone,
while with the main army he took the direction of Lower Berezino,
in the hope of barring the enemy’s path again at that place. It was intended
that Wittgenstein should follow close on the tracks of Oudinot and Victor, while Tchitchagoff was to hold the narrow
defile at Zembin. It was now Napoleon’s intention to
join Schwarzenberg by way of Minsk; and with this object his movements were
directed towards Borissoff. He hoped it would still
be possible to take up winter quarters behind the Berezina. But on the 16th
Minsk was taken by the Russians. Orders were therefore sent to Dombrovski to hold the bridge-head at Borissoff with his Poles; Oudinot was despatched in that direction; and the French main army crossed the Dnieper on the 19th at Orsha.
Meanwhile, on Napoleon’s right, severe fighting on
the Dwina (July—October) had ended in Wittgenstein’s advance to Chashniki and Vitebsk and Victor’s retirement towards Senno; while, to the south, Torraassoff had successfully withstood the Austrian onset. On the ratification of the
Peace of Bucharest, Tchitchagoff brought up the army
of the Danube, and, taking Tormassoff’s place at the
head of the combined forces, marched towards the Berezina. The situation in the
rear of the French main array, at the moment when its shattered remnants
approached the Berezina, was thus very grave. Wittgenstein, with more than
30,000 men, stood ready at Chashniki to advance against Oudinot and Victor, who were posted with 22,000 men
at Chereia and Krasnogura ;
while Tchitchagoff, with more than 30,000, was
marching upon Borissoff, in order to drive Dombrovski from this important point.
Napoleon, believing himself to be in possession
of the passage over the Berezina at Borissoff,
ordered the destruction of the pontoon trains, with their carriages, which had
been provided at Orsha; but General Eble had fortunately preserved some waggons with coal, instruments, and iron material for building bridges. Meanwhile the
situation of the French o o army became more and more
perilous. It was pursued by an enemy flushed by victory, and now, thanks to
reinforcements, far superior in numbers. Miloradovitch disposed of more than 25,000 men; the main army, under Kutusoff and Tormassoff, added 40,000 more. By November 21 the
bridge-head of Borissoff was lost to the French. Next
day Tchitchagoff crossed the Berezina at that point,
and pushed his advanceguard towards Loshnitza, but was driven back again by Oudinot to the right bank. Napoleon was now convinced that the passage of the Berezina
below Borissoff was barred by KutusofFs approach as completely as that by the town itself was stopped by Tchitchagoff. His only course, therefore, was to force his
way by Zembin to Vilna between Tchitchagoff and Wittgenstein. On Nov. 23 he directed Oudinot to
throw bridges across the Berezina at Vesselovo, where
the road to Zembin passes that river, and ordered
Victor to stop Wittgenstein’s advance against Oudinot.
Victor, however, in the end, fell back on Loshnitza.
Through the junction with Victor and Oudinot, the
strength of the French main army again rose to between 37,000 and 40,000 men,
not counting many thousands of stragglers. It was with this army that Napoleon
was to attempt the passage of the Berezina, in the face of an enemy three times
stronger, and surrounding him on all sides.
Both Wittgenstein and Tchitchagoff believed that Napoleon would cross south of Borissoff.
Wittgenstein therefore advanced but slowly, although Victor, by his retreat
upon Loshnitza, had left the way open; and he did not
reach Studianka, near the crossing-place, till
November 27. Thus, left to his own resources, Tchitchagoff failed at the decisive moment to bar the way. Conceiving that Napoleon would
make his way to Minsk below Borissoff, where Oudinot was making a feint of preparations, Tchitchagoff with his main force marched southward on the
25th, leaving behind him, opposite Borissoff, only Langeron’s feeble corps, and at Brili,
opposite Studianka, a detachment under Chaplitz. On the 26th, Chaplitz also was ordered back to Borissoff’; and there
remained only a small detachment, under Komiloff,
opposite Studianka.
Preparations for throwing the bridges across at
this place were begun on the 25th. In order to prevent the enemy from opposing
the passage, Oudinot’s whole artillery, numbering
forty guns, was mounted on the heights of Studianka.
On November 26, to the astonishment of the French, the further (right) bank of
the river appeared almost free from the enemy. There was, in fact, nothing
there but Komiloff”s detachment, which was soon
driven off by a small body of cavalry and sharpshooters who crossed the river
on horseback or on rafts. Meanwhile two trestle-bridges were begun, a larger
one for carriages and cavalry, and a smaller one above it for the infantry. The
river being swollen and full of ice, the work was unusually hard ; but, early
in the afternoon, the smaller bridge was completed. Oudinot at once crossed by it, sent a detachment to secure the Zembin defile, and then advanced southward with his main forces. Three hours later the
artillery followed by the larger bridge. The passage of Ney’s corps was delayed
by the breakdown of the larger bridge during the night of November 26-27.
About midday on the 27th Napoleon himself
crossed with the Guards, and took up his headquarters in the village of Zanivki. On the left bank there still remained the corps of
Victor, Davout, and Eugene, with the great mass of the unattached troops, and,
mixed up with them, the whole of the baggage train. It was on this day that the
Russians first appeared in the neighbourhood of the
crossing. On the right bank of the river, Komiloff and Chaplitz failed to make any impression on Oudinot; while Tchitchagoff, who
had now returned, declined to order a general attack. On the left bank, Victor
took up his position at Studianka to cover the
crossing against Wittgenstein. Instead, however, of attacking Victor,
Wittgenstein continued his march to Borissoff, and
falling upon Partouneaux’s division, which had been
left behind at Stary-Borissoff and had lost its way,
he surrounded it and forced it to surrender. Further delay was caused by a
third breakdown of the larger bridge; but, during the night of November 27-28,
other bodies of troops passed over.
On November 28, Wittgenstein and Tchitchagoff, reinforced by Yermoloff and Platoff, made, for the first time, a combined
attack on the French army on both sides of the river. The conflict was severe,
and lasted all day. On the right bank, where the country was covered with
woods, the Russians on the Borissoff-Zembin road were
unable to deploy, and were repulsed by Oudinot and
Ney with great loss. On the left bank, Victor’s corps, posted on high ground, stoutly
withstood Wittgenstein’s attack and checked the Russian offensive. During the
night Victor crossed the river, leaving only his rear-guard behind. Meanwhile,
the unattached troops and the carriages had been passing over without
intermission. Those who stumbled were trampled under foot;
many fell into the water. Many families, women, and children, who had followed
the army from Moscow, here found a miserable end. On November 29, about 9 a.m., the bridges were set on fire.
The French losses were frightful. They amounted to at least half of the regular army, that is to say, from 20,000 to 25,000 men. On the other hand, Napoleon’s reputation was saved. The passage of the Berezina should not be regarded merely as a dismal catastrophe, but as the greatest achievement in the retreat of 1812. The Emperor owed his deliverance, above all, to the magic of his name and the prestige of his arms. Wittgenstein and Tchitchagoff were both afraid of him; neither was anxious to come to close quarters. Besides, Kutusof believed that he could attain his end without a pitched battle. With the passage of the Berezina, the Grand Army of 1812 was extinct. Hunger, cold (—13° Fahr.), and the Cossacks, finished the work of destruction. The remnants fled in wild haste to the Niemen On December 2, three days after the passage of
the Berezina, the ordered nucleus of the main army numbered only 8800 men, rank
and file; on the 10th, only 4300. On the Russian side, the light troops, who
were entrusted with the pursuit, sufficed to complete the annihilation of the
French army; the main body followed slowly behind. In the face of his terrible
losses, Napoleon gave up all hope of checking the flight. The thought of
abandoning the army, which he had conceived on hearing of Malet’s conspiracy, had now ripened into a resolution. The 29th bulletin, dated from Molodetchno, December 3, was meant to prepare the world for
his return. He confessed the ruin of his army, but laid the blame on the early
commencement of the Russian winter. At Smorgoni, on
December 5, he announced to his generals his intention of departing for Paris,
in order to raise another army. He entrusted the supreme command to Murat, and
left Berthier with him. Accompanied only by a few of his intimates and a scanty
escort, he set out the same day, and, travelling by Vilna, Warsaw, Dresden, and
Mainz, reached Paris in safety at midnight, December 18-19.
As head of the State, Napoleon was at this
moment more indispensable in the capital than on the field. But Murat, the
dashing leader of an advance-guard, was by no means the right man to rescue the
remnants of the army. Under him the last trace of discipline vanished. Only a
few thousand men of the Guards still held together; all the rest disbanded.
Some reinforcements, Loison’s division, Wrede’s
corps, came up; but they were speedily lost in the general wreck. On December 8
Murat reached Vilna; but the appearance of some Russian cavalry sufficed to
make him retreat hastily on Kovno in the night of December 9-10. Near the hill
of Ponarskaia, where there was a steep rise in the
ice-covered road, Ney, with what was left of Wrede’s and Loison’s force, sought to check the Cossacks; but the attempt ended in the complete
destruction of his troops. Everything that the French had hitherto dragged with
them—guns, baggage, and trophies—was here lost. On the same day Vilna was
occupied by the Russians. The misery in the town was indescribable. Nearly all
the houses were filled with sick and wounded, the courtyards with the dead, and
the streets with stragglers clothed in rags. Beyond Vilna the pursuit was
carried out only by Platoff’s Cossacks and the
cavalry of the advance-guard. These were sufficient to scare the French back
over the Niemen. An attempt made by Ney to hold the bridges at Kovno and the
town itself failed, as the Niemen and the Viliia were
frozen hard. On December 14 Kovno also was taken by the Russians.
Here, on the Niemen, which at that time formed
the western limit of the Russian Empire, the pursuit ended. The Grand Army had
disappeared. Only about 1000 men of the Guards remained in order; the rest
roamed over the country, singly or in small bands, mostly unarmed and in rags.
The only available troops were the two wings, under Schwarzenberg and
Macdonald, which together amounted to over 60,000 men. These, with the Poles,
who had crossed the Niemen at Olita, and the
stragglers, altogether about 100,000 men, were all that was left of the Grand
Army. More than 500,000 men were lost, over 150,000 army horses, and about 1000
guns. The prisoners numbered upwards of 100,000; many others had deserted, or
filled the hospitals; the great mass, about a quarter of a million of men, had
found their graves in Russia. The Russian losses were estimated at 200,000.
Kutusoff was inclined to be satisfied with
driving the invaders across the frontier; but Alexander was firmly resolved to
proceed from defence to attack. The prospects of a
general rising of Europe were favourable. On December
SO, 1812, General York, the commander of the Prussian auxiliaries, concluded
with the Russians the Convention of Tauroggen, by
which, of his own authority, he broke with the French and declared his corps,
for the time being, neutral. On January IS, 1813, Alexander’s main army crossed
the Niemen.
The Napoleon of 1812 was, for the world, no
longer the republican general of 1796. United by marriage with the Imperial House
of Habsburg, he stood nearer to the ancien régime than to the Revolution. He no longer appeared as the deliverer of
the nations, but as their conqueror and oppressor. For the restoration of
Poland or the abolition of serfdom he displayed little genuine zeal. The part
which destiny had assigned him in history was played out. He worked no longer in
the interests of humanity, but for the selfish ends of his personal or dynastic
ambition. He had no serious idea, in Russia, any more than in Spain, of furthering
the revolt of the people against an obsolete social and political system; all
he did, therefore, was to turn the national rising against himself as a foreign
conqueror. When the “Patriotic War” was over, his defeat gave to the
victorious nationalconservative party complete
supremacy in Russia. If Poland was to be restored, its restoration would be due
to the Russian Emperor alone.
To turn to the causes of Napoleon’s overthrow—it
was neither the Russian frost, nor the national rising, but his own strategic
blunders that brought it about. He desired, in one year, to bring to a
victorious end a campaign which, at the very least, required two. It has been
considered his capital error that he continued his march on Moscow beyond
Smolensk. Even supposing that, during the first year, it was feasible to beat
the Russian army at Moscow and occupy the city for a short time, nothing can
excuse the folly of driving half a million of men by forced marches into the
heart of Russia in order to reach Moscow with only 100,000. It is clear that,
not only from a social and political, but from a strategic point of view,
Napoleon, towards the end of his career, gradually degenerated. But, as his
creative genius became exhausted, his vast schemes only grew vaster still.
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