Three Emperors (9780062194138)

by Dietrich, William

  I shifted, swallowed, and experimented with sleeping standing up, without success. Bored, I opened my eyes again. Nothing had changed. Sergeant Hulot stalked in front of us, puffed and frowning, and a cluster of dismounted officers waited ahead of him, their horses twitching. The thunder on the right kept growing. Musket and cannon fire was as continuous as the roar of surf. Still we did nothing.

  I allowed myself to hope that the battle was being decided without me. I’d find an excuse to creep off, and then embroider my army experience a decade from now—warm, well fed, and alive.

  My hands were numb. So were my feet, I decided. And my nose.

  Nothing. Nothing. What was Napoleon doing?

  And then suddenly there were bugles and shouts as crisp as the crack of a cannon, relayed up and down the line. A colonel swung up onto his horse, trotted in front of us, and pointed with his sword, which was helpful, since I’d lost all sense of direction. “Sacré nom de Dieu, forward!”

  A companion looked at a watch. It was ten o’clock. Had my bet failed, and Soult’s corps was to engage after all? My luck kept worsening. We stepped off as if one organism, as syncopated as androids, as mindless as golems. Frosted grass at first, and then the crystallized mud of a frozen field. As we marched at the standard pace of seventy-six paces a minute, the land began to rise.

  I gloomily guessed our destination. We were marching back to the Pratzen Heights, which Bonaparte has so conspicuously abandoned just two days before. The Austrians and Russians had since occupied them, so now we had to attack uphill? What madness was this? Had the French never heard of Bunker Hill? I couldn’t help playing amateur general, and desperately wanted to fall out, rejoin the emperor’s command, and point out the error of his ways.

  No chance. I was sandwiched by men—Gideon at my left shoulder, the regimental standard to my right, and men behind, Cheval lurking back there somewhere. Company after company, regiment after regiment, division after division. I could no more reverse direction than I could reverse time.

  The mist thinned as we slogged uphill, and our army rose from a white sea. The flags, with their bright bronze eagles, emerged first, so looking to one side and the other, I could see for one moment a forest of standards with no soldiers to go with them. Then Soult’s corps as a whole climbed out of the mist and into the bright low sun, entire divisions sprouting from where we’d been hidden. Tramp, tramp, tramp, steadily uphill. I thankfully warmed.

  Soult and Lannes had four divisions in all. Two battalions of light infantry formed a skirmishing line while we line soldiers followed in column, like parallel battering rams. There was a murmur that rose to an exultant shout as we cleared the fog and spied one another. We were not alone after all! Hundreds of flags, tens of thousands of men, syncopated like a vast machine. Cheers rolled to join the thunder of the battle to our right. Batteries of cannon were firing there, guns flashing in the smoke. The sun itself seemed at Napoleon’s command, gleaming to illuminate tens of thousands of bayonets.

  Bonaparte weather.

  I got my bearings. We were advancing more or less east, into the sun. To our right the land fell away into a tangle of wood, stream, and village, and it was from there that the roar we’d heard for the past two hours continued. The fog in that hollow had been thickened by gun smoke. Flags rocked and pitched as if they were masts in a stormy sea. A desperate struggle was going on as the Allies tried to get around us to roll up our formations.

  To our left—the north—there was a broad swale between the Pratzen Heights and the wooded hills miles beyond. Huge numbers of men moved there as well, cavalry swirling in great turgid currents. There was smoke, dust, and tendrils of fog.

  We were in the center, marching toward the heart of the enemy. It seemed to me it would be a bloody business, yet not only could I not escape, but I found myself unexpectedly caught in the thrill of it. I, the American skeptic, selfish and opportunistic, actually forgot for a moment about my own safety and felt swept up in a greater story.

  There’s beauty in a military assault, uniforms bright and brushed, crossbelts chalked, buttons and bayonets gleaming that men polish for luck, legs as coordinated as a centipede’s. General Duhesme in Boulogne told me once that I should surrender to military passion, give myself over to discipline and courage, and that the greatest exhilaration in life was belonging to a unit and a cause. My futile attempts at personal independence, he predicted, would lead to nothing but misery. I finally understood what he meant. The air seemed charged with the shared camaraderie of sacrifice and danger. We were fused as fiercely as if we’d joined a messianic religion, and at that moment, in that place, there seemed no higher purpose than to close with the enemy. The weight of my weapons was forgotten, hunger and thirst were forgotten, my heart hammered, and I was drugged by spectacle. My only purpose was to keep my place in line as we strode over plowed clods of earth. My life had come down to one chilly, sunlit moment, and Napoleon understood this. He was the conductor of a vast and fatal game in which we were momentary madmen, joyous participants in his ambition, because he’d given purpose to ordinary lives. Close, fight, win.

  So we marched up Pratzen Heights.

  Battlefields are big. Ours was eight miles wide as the two huge armies stretched to try to flank each other, and our march up that three-hundred-foot-high hill was a mile in length, a lockstep advance that consumed an eternity, by which I mean half an hour. At any moment I expected a barrage of cannonballs and a volley of musketry, and yet the enemy banners couldn’t even be seen.

  Where the devil were the Russians and Austrians?

  Belatedly, I realized what Napoleon had always expected: the enemy had weakened its center to strengthen its flanks.

  Suddenly a cannonball did come, seemingly out of nowhere, skipping across the hard ground like a bowled stone. It hit our column at an angle and knocked aside five men with astonishing violence. They didn’t fall; they flew, or rather parts of them did, and sprays of blood flew with them. We gasped, instinctively recoiled, and then accelerated to close up the gap.

  “Steady. No faltering there! Dress that rank!”

  There are many kinds of courage, from facing a peril alone to defending an unpopular opinion. One of the most daunting is standing in the front rank of an infantry line. The dashing uniform makes a splendid target, its crossbelts the perfect aiming point. One is expected to neither duck, dodge, nor turn, lest too much fidgeting dissolve the cohesion of the company. Upright and face forward is the soldier’s task, to stand stout even under the worst bombardment and the most terrifying cavalry charge. This expectation is entirely counter to human nature, and the only way to achieve it is ceaseless drill and discipline.

  Stiffening a soldier’s resolve is the instinct to avoid shame. Few have any idea what war is about. Yet better to be killed or crippled than to let down your comrades and be branded a coward. Men fight to become men—to save this comrade and avenge that one.

  The enemy’s transfer of units allowed us to climb the long western slope largely unmolested. Orders rang out when we were halfway up, and we deployed from column to line, now presenting a wide hedge of bayonets. I followed Gideon’s lead, shoulder to shoulder, and there were enough stumbles on the uneven ground that my untrained awkwardness drew no particular attention. We aimed for a village near the crest of the hill.

  “It looks abandoned,” Gideon said with hope.

  A battalion of French skirmishers had disappeared over the crest, which seemed promising. But then there was an eruption of gunfire, and smoke swelled at the summit like an ominous thunderhead. We turned slightly to skirt the village, hoping to find a way clear, but a line of Russian musketeers from Novgorod rose as one from a shallow depression before us and fired before we could think.

  Our entire line recoiled, as if struck by an enormous whip. The surprise, the flashing ripple of enemy gunfire, and the sizzle of bullets shredding the air were a shock. No amount of training can entirely prepare troops for it, or for the tumble of dead an
d wounded. The discipline of the 14th temporarily evaporated, and we reeled in retreat. I paused to fire, and many others also shot, but we were too rattled to be very effective. We spilled in confusion back down the slope for a hundred yards, the ascent of units behind finally stopping us. Hulot cursed our whores of mothers for our momentary collapse and hollered at us to reload. This task took about twenty seconds. Rip cartridge, pour powder, drop the ball down the barrel, ram the wadding, prime the lock. The routine steadied us. Then brigade commander Baron Thiébault appeared on his horse, imposing and fearless. The men straightened at his inspection, and when he waved his sword, we roared “Vive l’empereur” and started back uphill. I found myself shouting the chant as loudly as anyone, to bolster my courage. I was in it now, and we charged back the way we’d retreated. Our line weaved or jumped over several dead and dying men from our company.

  “Remember!” Hulot roared. “At fifty yards aim for the knees, at one hundred the waist, and at two hundred the head!” He was accounting for the tendency of musket balls to fly high at close range and drop at a distance.

  The Russians fired too soon this time, most of their balls passing harmlessly. They were nervous, too. Some of our men instinctively ducked, too late to actually make themselves safer, and their comrades laughed and insulted the instinct. Then we halted, Thiébault signaled with his sword, and it was our turn to shoot. The roar clapped my ears, the musket kicked my shoulder like a boxer’s punch, and burning powder from the firing pan pitted my cheek. There was so much smoke we couldn’t see what effect we’d had, but there was no time to reload.

  “Charge!”

  We ran through the haze of gun smoke and saw the line of dead and wounded Russians our volley had produced. Behind, in the swale where they’d hidden, the Novgorod survivors were furiously trying to reload. We howled like banshees and were on them before they could level their guns, bayoneting a score while the rest broke and fled. In an instant the 14th Line had redeemed itself.

  “Finish the wounded. The Russians will shoot you in the back if you don’t.”

  I left this ruthless task to others, since there were several enthusiasts, Cheval among them. Then we reloaded and stepped off again.

  We came over the crest and looked down Pratzen’s eastern slope. Before us was a magnificent view toward the château of Austerlitz, several miles away, the intervening miles filled with columns of white-coated Austrians and green-coated Russians. Artillery boomed, cavalry raced, flags flew, and bayonets glinted, all in glorious confusion. Another cannonball came bouncing, a gray blur that hit our line ten men to the right of where I was standing. It threw two soldiers into the air and disemboweled a third before careening into our rear. I was glad I knew few of my fellow soldiers, given how they were falling. The Russians we’d routed had stopped their flight partway down the east side of the hill, turned, and with fresh battalions were now marching bravely back toward us.

  “Dress the line! Steady! Aim!”

  More cannonballs from the enemy guns, knocking men over like ninepins.

  “Fire!”

  Our volley shocked them. With our soldiers settling down, we shot to good effect. Pack enough fellows together and a company of muskets works like a gigantic shotgun. Russians pitched, reeled, and toppled.

  “Fire at will!”

  Now it was a contest of speed and accuracy, and here the long hours of French training paid off. Slam a musket butt-first to the ground, reach for a cartridge, tear, load, ram, prime, up, aim, shoot. I’d regarded my musket with contempt, thinking it heavy and inaccurate compared to my old American long rifle. But in that moment it was my dearest friend.

  The smoke choked. My ears rang. My only orientation was our flag, and that fell and then rose again. I assumed the first bearer had been killed.

  “Advance!”

  We strode forward, slowly this time, as if wading into water, flinching from sheets of bullets. I sensed, more than saw, men falling near me. We followed Hulot as he led us diagonally down the slope of the hill.

  “Halt!”

  Our commanders arranged us in checkerboard fashion, providing gaps for field guns to be run forward. The French artillery had followed us over the crest of the hill. Now their crews pushed them by hand, dropped the tails of their carriages, and aimed. The Russians were crying out desperately, shouting and pointing to get their men to aim at the cannoneers.

  The guns roared first, firing canister and grape. The storm of jagged metal harvested like a scythe. We felt the concussion of the guns and the fan of fragments shaking the air.

  They hit the massed Russian formations, and the enemy line collapsed.

  “After them!”

  We whooped and swept downhill, bayonets leveled. Fleeing Russians collided with fresh Allied units struggling desperately to support. The enemy lines were thrown into chaos. We shouted in triumph. As the enemy reeled, we halted, fired, and received ineffectual fire in response. With a final charge, we scooped up enemy banners and two wounded generals and found ourselves temporary masters of the reverse slope. From here we could wheel right into the enemy rear or turn left to assault his forces on the Brunn–Olmütz road. Our artillery had the high ground. Unless the Allies rallied, they were split.

  I caught my breath. My throat was parched, my eyes stung, my shoulder ached, and my bayonet was bloody, although I had no recollection of sticking anyone. Hundreds of men in French blue and Russian green were sprawled on the frozen ground. The screaming of shot horses drowned out begs for help. Eyes, both human and animal, rolled in fear.

  I felt exhilarated. To beat death is to savor life. And if the entire enemy army collapsed and we pursued them, there’d be enough chaos for me to escape.

  I looked around. Gideon was still standing, too.

  Then another cannonball. A major I didn’t know, reining his excited horse, was cut in two. The ball sliced him at the waist, torso leaping. His clenching legs, completely detached, sent his mount sprawling.

  The poor man came down with an expression of stunned surprise, his chest ending in a tangle of gore.

  “Re-form!” the order floated across the field. “They’re counterattacking!”

  The battle wasn’t over yet.

  Chapter 18

  White-coated Austrians marched back up the Pratzen Heights to support the Russians. Realizing their mistake too late, the enemy had allowed Napoleon to seize the crown of the hill, and now needed to retrieve it or face disaster. Commander Thiébault ordered our three six-pound field pieces loaded with round shot. Cannonballs are hideously effective when skipped on hard ground, and the frozen earth of Austerlitz was perfect for murder. I watched the solid French shot drill holes in the Austrian lines as neatly as the bore of an auger. The enemy tramped bravely toward us anyway, closing their gaps, but you could see the formations quiver as they were pounded. The Austrians fired too soon, bullets whapping into the dirt in front of us. Then they gave a great shout from the cloud of smoke they’d conjured—“Gott in Himmel!”—and charged like berserkers, emerging from the haze with bayonets leveled. Our front line had been ordered down on one knee, so that my eyes were at the same height as their points. I can’t recommend the perspective.

  “Steady!” Hulot cautioned. “Hold your fire. Hold. Hold . . .”

  The Austrians were red-faced and open-mouthed, taking precious breath to yell as they sprinted up the slope. Their line grew ragged as some outpaced others, and still Hulot ordered us not to shoot. “Wait . . .”

  My God, they looked ten feet tall, shoulders as broad as an ox’s, knuckles white from gripping their empty muskets, eyes crazed.

  “Fire!”

  A huge crash of shots enveloped us in smoke. Dimly seen, half the enemy seemed to collapse. We reloaded frantically, which is damned awkward while kneeling. A few of our own were overcome by instinct and stood to flee the Austrian charge. One was accidentally shot dead by a companion aiming from the rank behind.

  “Fire at will!”

  The
shooting rattled like a drum. The battlefield was murky with smoke. Austrians fell, the survivors slowed, then stopped, and then seemed to be weaving like drunken men, some wounded and the others unclear what to do. We lit into them, me included, because once you’re in a battle, all you think is to shoot the other fellow before he can shoot you. I tried to aim but had no idea if I hit anyone. It was simply a race of firepower. Bullets sung by my ears and kicked gravel into my face. A supporting regiment was coming up behind the enemy, so the three French cannons went off again, cutting great gory gaps.

  “Now—charge!”

  We swept through as if they were straw. We’d butchered wounded Russians but made prisoners of the Austrians, who were civilized and worthy of ransom or exchange. We rushed another hundred yards before running into the massed fire of still another unit.

  Screams, wet coughs, moans. More French fell around me. They spun, sagged, knelt. Survival was a question of cruel luck. Some looked surprised when shot, some horrified, and some seemed to fall asleep. Hulot’s head snapped on his shoulders, bits of skull flew, and he fell over. I looked anxiously for Gideon. Still standing! Our muskets empty and our line in disarray, it was our turn to retreat, this time uphill. My eyes watered from grit. My thirst was ferocious. I was sweating despite the cold. I grasped my canteen and took a swallow of watered wine before sharing it with Gideon. He gulped with a nod, and other hands reached. The canteen came back empty.

  I looked about blearily. For miles on my left and my right, great clouds of smoke rose into the winter air. Huge formations of men tramped this way and that. Battle is a minuet turned into a stampede, with officers trying to direct herds of men in the right direction. Distant units crawled like ants, their movement as ponderous as barges. They’d drift close to each other, pause, and erupt in sheets of musket fire. Flags would shudder as if in a stiff wind. One side or the other would crack and give way, but not for long. Then a counterattack, and the slaughter would go on. Bodies entwined like lovers.