Napoleon

by Emil Ludwig

  " I can see, gentlemen, that you no longer have any taste for fighting. The king of Naples would rather be back in his petty kingdom; Berthier would like to be playing the sports man in

  (Photograph by J. E. Bulloz, Paris.) Napoleon as Emperor. Bust by Houdon, Musee de Dijon.

  Overestimating the Foe

  Grosbois ; Rapp would fain be enjoying the sweets of Parisian life ! "

  The marshals answer never a word, for they will not deny that it is so. But that it should be so, is a new experience for Emperor Napoleon.

  When he reaches the Memel, the symbolic significance of the Russian frontier captivates his imagination to such an extent that he is the first to cross the river, and he gallops several miles eastward before returning slowly to the bridge. Well, he is over now, and this time, in very truth, he has crossed the Rubicon. At his nod, three armies advance into the interior of Poland. The main army is under his immediate command, the second being commanded by Eugene, and the third by Jerome. Why does he venture to entrust a whole army to the leadership of this amateur (who made such a fool of himself in the last war), even with the safeguard of veteran generals as advisers ? Napoleon thinks he can risk it. The enemy has at most three hundred thousand men.

  Where is the enemy ? In two armies, led by Barclay de Tolly and Bagration. They are somewhere in Lithuania, far away, and the total force is only one hundred and seventy thousand. Napoleon's overestimate of the strength of his opponents was a disastrous error, for if he had himself had fewer mouths to feed, he would have had a much better chance of getting adequate supplies for his soldiers. Why is he so keen on superiority of numbers ? General Bonaparte was used, with forty thousand men, to defeat an enemy that greatly outnumbered him, his method being to crush one wing of the foe after another. The cumbrous multitude he has collected for the present campaign is symptomatic of his own increasing age, and of the lust for power which makes him pile up weight, instead of equipping the spirit with wings. Is he no longer the commander of the days ofRivoli?

  In a sense, he is still that commander, for, even with this gigantic array of troops, he will be a victorious invader. His first

  A Pause in the Advance

  army will march from Tilsit upon Vilna, to take up a position between the Russian detachments, so that his second and third armies can separately defeat the enemy. But the Russian distances weaken his influence. Upon a front of such vast extent, he cannot show himself everywhere. Those who command under him are too independent of one another (Davoust and Murat nearly fight a duel), and yet they are too dependent upon him. Never did he suffer more than in this campaign from the lack of speedy means of communication. His was the central brain in all his undertakings, so that a telegraph would have been far more useful to him than to his opponents.

  The Russians are aware of their own weakness. Neither of the two commanders ventures to stand firm. Both of them withdraw before the invaders, at first without any mutual understanding, to get into touch later, far in the rear. These are not the tactics of inspired leaders. Though the Russians do the right thing, it is merely because they are afraid of the forces that outnumber theirs, and because they dread the great name of Napoleon. They are but instruments in the hands of fate.

  For a time, the Emperor pauses in his advance. In Vilna, he says : " If Monsieur Barclay imagines that I am going to run after him to the Volga, he is making a great mistake. We will follow him to Smolensk and the Dvina, where a good battle will provide us with quarters. ... It would certainly be destruction were we to cross the Dvina this year. I shall go back to Vilna, spend the winter there, send for a troupe from the Theatre Francais, and another to play opera. We shall finish off the affair next May, unless peace is made during the winter."

  News from the outer world is satisfactory. At length the United States has declared war on England, and has gained some victories at sea. In England the opposition, which wants peace, is gathering strength. Even in Spain things are not going so badly. Forward ! A good battle !

  Where Is the Enemy?

  But where is the enemy ? The Emperor goes scouting, accompanied by only one officer; there is no trace of the Russians. Uneasiness grows. Since the invaders are marching light, and therefore too quickly, part of the army, on bad roads and amid heat and rainstorms, gets separated from its commissariat, upon which everything depends. In Vilna he fails to find the tsar, though Alexander has been there just before. At this moment, news is brought that the supplies are delayed, for the commissariat wagons have stuck fast in a morass, and the vessels that are bringing other supplies have run aground in the river; moreover, ten thousand horses have perished, through gorging themselves upon rank grass. The shortage cannot be hidden from the troops, who scatter through the town, and plunder so recklessly that there will be no supplies left for the next comers.

  The Emperor can get nothing from the inhabitants of this land either by threats or cajoleries ; and yet he detests rapine, which leads to chaos. The Lithuanians note that even now he has not granted the Poles the promised kingdom. They do not hail him as a liberator, as the people of Lombardy had done long years before. They give no help ; they give nothing ; they are hardly willing to accept in payment the forged rouble notes, millions of which he has had printed in Paris. They pray.

  What is to be done ? Now is the time to win over the tsar. He writes : "All that has taken place is out of keeping with Your Majesty's character, and with the personal consideration you have sometimes shown me in the past. . . . When I crossed the Memel, I had it in mind to send you an adjutant, as I have always done in previous campaigns." But, since the tsar had refused to receive his last envoy, " I realised that the invisible providence whose power and dominion I recognise would decide this matter, as he had decided so many others. . . . Nothing, therefore, is left but to conclude with the request that you will remain convinced of the steadfastness of my kindly feelings towards you."

  "I Am the Man of Calculations"

  Before writing this long and unctuous letter, in which nothing is genuine except the perplexity and the faith in destiny, he has had a conversation with a captured general who is to convey the missive. The way in which the Emperor hectors the prisoner, smacks of comic opera: " What does the tsar expect from this war ? I have seized one of his best provinces without firing a shot, and neither of us knows what we are quarrelling about! " Then, as his way was, he spent an hour or more pointing out the Russians' mistakes, asking why they had not defended "Vilna, and talking to this captive just as if he had been berating one of his own generals in Spain. " Are you not ashamed of yourselves ? " is the burden of his song. He waxes enthusiastic about the Poles, whom as a rule he frankly despises; but now it suits him to make much of their contempt for death. He says that he has thrice as many soldiers as the tsar, and much more money, so that he will be able to carry on the war for three years. These falsehoods are uttered in simulated anger, which he allows to flash out by fits and starts. The Russian meets bluff with bluff, saying that in Muscovy they have made preparations for a five years' campaign. But now the turn has come for one of the Emperor's bursts of frankness, in words suited to the ears of this officer blown him by a chance wind, but of course designed to impress the tsar, to whom they will be reported.

  " I am the man of calculations. When I was in Erfurt, my reckonings convinced me that it would suit my book better to walk hand in hand with you Russians, instead of quarrelling with you. We might still have been good friends. . . . Then the tsar made peace with me, when his country wanted war; now he makes war on me, when his country wants peace. It puzzles me that so distinguished a man can have anything to do with such persons as some of his present advisers. . . . How can any one make war through a council of war ? If at two in the morning a good idea enters my mind, in a quarter of an hour I have issued my orders, and half an hour later my outposts are executing it.

  Examination of a Prisoner

  But what happens among you ? " Napoleon shows the prisoner a letter from the Rus
sian general staff which his men have intercepted. " You can take it with you, for it will while away the tedium of your journey. . . . Tell the tsar I pledge him my word that five hundred and fifty thousand men have already crossed the Vistula. But I am a man of calculations, not a man of passion. I am still willing to enter into negotiations. What a glorious reign he might have had, if he had not broken with me ! "

  The general is alarmed by this flood of confessions. But in the evening, when he dines with the Emperor and three of the marshals, he is placed on an entirely different footing, for the Emperor proceeds to cross-question him like an explorer eager for information.

  " Have you any Kirghiz regiments ? "

  " No, but we are making experiments with Bashkirs and Tartars, who are very like the Kirghiz."

  "Is it true that when the tsar was in Vilna, he went to tea every day with a pretty lady there ? Let me see, what was her name ? "

  " The tsar is courtly to every lady."

  " Is it true that Baron vom Stein dined with the tsar ? "

  " All persons of note were invited to dinner."

  " How can the tsar tolerate such a man as Stein at his table ! Does he think the fellow can be fond of him ? Angels and devils cannot be good companions. . . . What is the population of Moscow ? How many houses ? How many churches ? . . . Why are there such a lot of churches ? "

  " Because our people are very pious."

  " Nobody is pious nowadays. Which is the shortest way to Moscow ? "

  " All roads lead to Rome, Sire. You can choose your own route to Moscow. Charles XII. marched by way of Pultava."

  At this mischievous answer, the Emperor thought fit to turn the conversation. As for the general, he had wit enough to

  Four Teeth!

  report in St. Petersburg that Napoleon was extremely nervous.

  This nervousness increases mile after mile. The Emperor tries to join battle, but the Russians evade the issue. Barclay, who is waiting for a junction with Bagration, retreats aimlessly ; Bagration does not come, for he believes that he is facing, not Jerome, but the main body of the invaders. Still, Bagration retreats. Jerome, who ought to follow him up, is too slow in his movements, so that Davoust, who is waiting for a junction with Jerome, has to let the enemy slip. The Emperor, in a rage, cashiers Jerome (who retires in dudgeon to Cassel), and gives the command to Davoust. Too late ! His fondness for Jerome, the braggart, has cost him the chance of a decisive battle. As difficulties increase, the Emperor redoubles the pace of his advance ; but as the tempo is quickened, the difficulties are redoubled. There is no means, now, of providing for the army. The retreating Russians burn their storehouses. No bread, no vegetables, nothing but meat. Dysentery breaks out. The horses eat the thatch from the roofs, and collapse in great numbers, so that their corpses line the road. During this advance in which there are no battles, the Bavarian leader estimates the losses of his corps at nine hundred men a day.

  What is Paris saying ?

  Very little news comes to hand ; hardly a word even from the empress. It seems as if the couriers were already being cut off. But here is a report from the Tuileries, written by the governess, to let him know how the child is getting on. He rejoins : "I hope to hear from you soon that the last four teeth have been cut. I have seen to it that the nurse shall get everything she needs. You can assure her of this."

  See the Emperor in the sun-parched steppe ; before him rises the smoke of the burning villages he has yet to reach, behind him the stench of decomposing bodies. The strange food and the unaccustomed heat lead to a recurrence of his attacks of gastric spasm; he can no longer bear to ride, and, since wheeled

  " This War Will Last Three Years!"

  traffic is constantly coming to grief, he covers great distances on foot, accompanied by the whole of his staff, pursued by the thought: Where is the fight to take place ? Couriers arrive less frequently, and, when they do come, bring no news calculated to interest him in his present state of nervous tension. Yet here he is, pacing up and down within his tent; and the pen of his secretary, instead of, as usual, ordering masses of men to move from one place to another, hastens over the paper to record the master's concern about the four teeth which are still lacking to an infant in a forlorn palace twelve hundred miles away. Soon the Emperor will be in Vitebsk. How far is it thence to Paris ?

  " Too far, Sire," is re-echoed from unseen lips.

  At last! We've got him ! There stands Barclay, held in check for the moment by Murat! He thinks to escape to Smolensk on the morrow ; such are the tidings ! The hour has struck. But the Emperor is ill, irresolute. With unwonted consideration, he does not wish his exhausted army to go straight from the heat of the march into the heat of battle ; with unwonted caution, he wishes to collect more troops than he really needs before beginning the attack, in order that the battle may be " another Austerlitz." He waits till morning.

  The Russian laughs. Under cover of the morning mists, he makes good his retreat ; and when the air clears not a trace of the foe is to be seen, nor can a guess be made as to the direction he has taken. At midday the Emperor returns from the search, flings his sword on the table, and exclaims :

  " Here I remain. Let us rally our forces. The campaign of the year '12 is at an end." When Murat urges him to continue the forward march, Napoleon answers : " In '13 I shall be at Moscow; in '14 at St. Petersburg. This war will last three years !

  It is time that the scattered army should be reorganised. Nearly a third of the forces has been struck off the lists, although no battle has taken place; the country has devoured

  Novels

  them. Where are the auxiliaries—the Prussians under Mac-donald, the Austrians under Schwarzenberg ? Trustworthy news is lacking. Too far ! What a country ! How is one to pass the weary hours when there is no fighting ? Wait ? In Cairo there were a hundred men of science in his train, and the country was full of unsolved riddles.—The following letter bears witness to a sense of boredom the Emperor has not known since the days of his lieutenancy :

  " Send us some entertaining books," the secretary writes to the librarian in Paris. " If there are some good novels, new or old, which the Emperor has not read, or memoirs pleasantly written, we should be most grateful; for time hangs so heavily on our hands in this place."

  Can we not see him standing in front of his tent in his old green coat ? He takes one pinch of snuff after another, and from time to time looks through his telescope across the plain. Then a grenadier approaches with a paper in his hand ; the Emperor reads it, puts it away ; the two secretaries gaze dumbly from the gloom of the tent, like two tamed animals awaiting the nod of their tamer. Rustam sits apart Turk fashion; for him alone is the weather never too hot. All movement is paralysed, activity is stopped, one can go neither forward nor backward. Napoleon calls towards the tent; " Meneval! Order some novels ! "

  News comes at last: England has secured a treaty with the tsar and with the Spanish regent. This arouses the Emperor: he sees in it the birth of a fresh coalition; perhaps, even, encirclement. Must he really lie up here till Europe rises against him or goes to sleep ? Over there is Smolensk. The two Russian armies have doubtless by now met in the town. That is where the real Russia begins : surely they will not evacuate and burn the old town of the Blessed Virgin, as they have been doing in the Polish and Lithuanian wilderness ! Should victory be achieved at Smolensk, then the march on Moscow or St. Petersburg can be undertaken at will.

  King Lear upon the Heath

  He questions his generals. Many of them utter words of warning. But the Emperor replies : " Russia cannot continue this sacrifice of her towns. Alexander can only begin negotiations after there has been a big battle. No blood has yet been spilled. Even if I have to march as far as the holy city of Moscow, I am determined to force a fight and win ! "

  At last the two Russian armies have effected a junction; they plan a systematic retreat, preceded by a stubborn resistance; wave after wave of the weary French army breaks against the walls of Smolens
k. The veterans think of Acre, thirteen years gone by. ... In the end, the town falls, but it falls amid the flames ; a heap of ruins is all that is left in the victor's hands. Is the Emperor beginning to understand the moral strength of this people ? Can he not see that day by day its mood becomes more fanatical, that it would rather burn its ancient holy things than leave them to the enemy ? There remains nothing for a starving army to plunder.

  The Emperor, indeed, is in sorry plight. King Lear upon the heath. Power crumbles in fragments from his body ; every gesture melts in the air; from afar the laughter of the rational world comes echoing, to be lost in the void. An end must be made. A second message is sent to the tsar. No use writing, for that last letter from Vilna has remained unanswered. Once more a captured general is ushered into his presence, and once more the Emperor's secret meditations are unveiled. In conclusion he says :

  " Can you write to the tsar ? No ? Still, you can write to your brother at headquarters and tell him what I am saying to you. You will greatly oblige me if you tell him that you have seen me and that I have charged you to write to him. He would do me a real service if he himself would let the tsar know, or get the grand duke to do it for him, that my greatest wish is to conclude peace. . . . What are we fighting for ? Of course, if you were the English, that would be a different matter ! But the Russians have done nothing to me. You want to buy coffee and

  Coffee and Sugar

  sugar cheaply ? Very well. That can be arranged. But do you fancy it will be easy to beat me ? Then get your council of war to consider the situation; if it thinks the Russians can achieve a victory, choose your battle-ground. . . . Otherwise I shall be compelled to take Moscow, and, in spite of every precaution, I shall perhaps not be able to save it from destruction. A capital which has been in the possession of the enemy, is like a woman who has lost her honour. . . . What do you think ? If the tsar wishes to conclude peace, surely none will oppose him ? "