by G. A. Henty
“The fighting seems very heavy.”
“It will be heavier before they take Smolensk,” the Russian said. “There are 20,000 men in the town, and reinforcements can be sent across as required. At present the fighting is in the suburbs, but they won’t drive us out of them as quickly as they expect.”
After crossing the bridge they made their way to the headquarters of General Doctorow, and were at once shown in. The Russian saluted: “The commander-in-chief sends his compliments to you, general, and wishes to know how things are going on, and whether you need reinforcements. He desires that you should send messengers every ten minutes acquainting him with the progress of affairs.”
“All goes well at present. The troops are everywhere doing their duty. As yet we need no reinforcements. They are making but little way in any of the suburbs, but of course their attack is not yet fully developed.”
“Allow me to introduce to your Excellency this British officer, Mr. Wyatt, aide-de-camp to General Wilson, who arrived in our camp yesterday afternoon as British commissioner.”
“You have come at an opportune moment, sir, to see fighting. If you had come sooner you would have seen nothing but running away. If you would like to make a tour of the walls to see what is going on, an officer shall accompany you.”
Frank accepted the invitation with thanks. He had nothing at present to report more than the aide-de-camp would take back, and he knew that Sir Robert would be glad of further particulars. He therefore asked him to tell Sir Robert why he had stayed, and at once proceeded to the walls, accompanied by an officer of Doctorow’s staff. From there, little could be seen of the fighting. The musketry fire, indeed, had almost ceased, and the French could be seen retiring up the hill, where dense masses of troops were drawn up. Returning to the general’s quarters he mounted and rode back to the commander-in-chief’s staff.
“The affair has scarcely begun yet,” he said to Sir Robert, “but the whole of the French army is drawn up in line of battle, and, I should say, is about to assault the town in full force.”
For some hours there was a lull, but about mid-day heavy masses of troops were seen descending from the French positions, and as they approached the suburbs a roar of musketry broke out. Twice in the course of the next two hours Frank was sent down into the town. He reported that, although resisting with the greatest obstinacy, the Russians were being driven out of the suburbs. Just as he returned the second time, Sir Robert Wilson, who was examining the enemy’s position with a telescope, observed that ten batteries of artillery were making their way up the steep hill on the other side of the river. He at once reported this to the general, adding: “They will very speedily knock the bridges into pieces and isolate the garrison altogether. But I think, sir,” he added, “if you place some batteries on the hill on this side, you will take them in flank. The two hills are both about the same height, and they will be completely exposed to your fire.”
“Very well,” General Barclay replied, “I will order eight batteries up there at once, and you will oblige me if you will accompany them and indicate the best position for them to take up. Colonel Stellitz, you will at once carry the order to the artillery, and request the officer in command of the batteries to post them as General Wilson may advise.”
Sir Robert and the colonel, followed by Frank, at once rode off. Just as they reached the artillery, the French battery opened fire. Exclamations of rage burst from the soldiers as the shot splashed into the water round the bridges and the shell burst over them. The general in command of the artillery, on receiving the order, directed eight batteries to follow General Wilson. At a gallop they dashed up the hill, and in ten minutes had unlimbered and opened fire upon the French. The effect was visible at once. Much confusion was observed among the artillery-men, and in a short time several of the guns were dismounted, and four or five powder waggons blown up. Then a loud cheer burst from the Russian artillery-men as they saw the French bring up the horses from behind the shelter of the crest, limber-up and drive off with the guns. But from other points of vantage 150 guns were now pouring their fire into the town, and, as the flames broke out from several quarters, exclamations of grief and fury were heard from the Russian soldiers.
Smolensk was, like Moscow, considered a sacred city, and the soldiers were affected rather by the impiety of the act than by the actual destruction that was being wrought. As General Wilson and Frank rode back to the spot where General Barclay was stationed, a mass of Russian infantry moved down the hill towards the bridges, and at once began to cross.
“Whose division is that?” Sir Robert asked an officer as they joined the staff.
“It is Prince Eugene’s,” he replied. “They are pressing us hard now, having driven Doctorow’s men out of the covered way, and are massing for an assault on one of the gates.”
The fire continued unabated until seven o’clock. Then a messenger came across with the news that the French were drawing off, and that the covered way was being reoccupied. General Wilson was warmly thanked by the Russian commander-in-chief for having silenced the batteries that had threatened the bridges. That evening, when he issued the order for the evacuation of Smolensk, the disaffection with Barclay de Tolly broke out with renewed force, and during the night a body of generals came to Sir Robert Wilson’s tent. He was at the time occupied in dictating a despatch to Frank, whom he requested to retire directly he saw the rank of his visitors. As soon as they were alone they said that it had been resolved to send to the Emperor not only the request of the army for a new chief, but a declaration in their own name and that of the troops “that if any order came from St. Petersburg, to suspend hostilities and greet the invaders as friends”—for it had all along been believed that the retrograde movements were the result of the advice of the minister, Count Romanzow —“such an order would be regarded as one that did not express his Imperial Majesty’s real sentiments and wishes, but had been extracted from his Majesty under false representations or external control, and that the army would continue to maintain its pledge and to pursue the contest till the invader was driven beyond the frontier.”
“We are here, General Wilson,” one of the generals said, “to beg you to undertake the delivery of this message to the Emperor. It would mean death to any Russian officer who undertook the commission, but, knowing your attachment to the Emperor, and his equally well-known feelings towards yourself, no person is so well qualified to lay the expression of our sentiments before him. Your motives in doing so cannot be suspected; coming from you, the Emperor’s self-respect would not suffer in the same way as it would do, were the message conveyed to him by one of his own subjects.”
One after another the generals urged the request.
Sir Robert listened to their arguments, and then said: “This is altogether too grave a matter for me to decide upon hastily. I know thoroughly well that there is no thought of disloyalty in the mind of any of you towards the will of the Emperor, but the act is one of the gravest insubordination, and it is indeed a threat that you will disobey his Majesty’s commands in the event of his ordering a suspension of hostilities. As to the conduct of the commander-in-chief, I am not competent to express any opinion whatever, but as a soldier I can understand that this long-continued retreat and the abandonment of so many provinces to the enemy, without striking a single blow in their defence, is trying in the extreme, both to yourselves and your brave soldiers. I shall not leave the army until I see it fairly on the march again, but before I start I will give you my reply.”
The generals thanked Sir Robert warmly, and then withdrew.
“I shall write no more tonight, Wyatt,” the general said when Frank entered the tent. “I have other grave matters to think about. You had best lie down at once, and get a few hours’ sleep. Tomorrow is likely to be an eventful day, for the operation of withdrawing the army from this position and getting on to the main road again will be full of peril, and may indeed end in a terrible disaster.”
As soon as the
Russian army had repulsed the attacks of the French and resumed its march towards Moscow, Sir Robert Wilson left it and proceeded to St. Petersburg, where he had promised the Russian generals to inform the Czar of the opinion and disposition of the army, their dissatisfaction with the general, and their determination to continue the combat and to refuse to recognize any negotiations or armistice that might be made with the enemy.
“I shall leave you here, Wyatt,” the General said, on the morning after the desperate defence of Loubino had saved the army. “There is little chance of the French pressing the Russians any further. I think it probable that they may go into winter quarters where they now are; but in any case they cannot hope to outmarch us, and, if they follow, the battle will be in the position the Russians may choose. Even were there more fighting imminent, I should still start today for St. Petersburg; I only came round by Smolensk, as you know, because I thought that the Emperor would be found there. My first duty is to see him, and to report to him the arrangements that have been made on the Danube with the Grand Vizier and his people, by which the whole of the Russian army there will be able to join in the defence against the French. As soon as I have done so and explained to his Majesty the position here, I shall rejoin; and I hope the Czar will also be coming down here, for his presence would be most useful—not in the military way, for no men in the world could fight better than the Russians are doing,—but the army fears, above all things, that peace will be made before it has an opportunity of wiping out, what it considers its disgrace, in allowing the French to overrun so many rich provinces without striking a blow.
“In point of fact, the defence of Smolensk, and the way in which some 20,000 men yesterday withstood for hours the assault of three or four times their number, would be sufficient to prove to the world their fighting qualities. In my own mind, I consider that Barclay has acted wisely in declining to hazard the whole fortune of the war upon a single battle against an enemy which, from the first, has outnumbered him nearly threefold, but he should never have taken up his position on the frontier if he did not mean to defend it. Any other army than this would have become a disorganized rabble long ago. There is nothing so trying to troops as to march for weeks hotly chased by an enemy. Three times in the Peninsula we have seen what a British army becomes under far less trying circumstances. If the Russians did but know it, this retreat of theirs, and the admirable manner in which they have maintained their discipline, is as creditable as winning a great victory would be; still one can understand that the sight of this flying population, the deserted fields, this surrender of provinces to an enemy, is mortifying in the highest degree to their pride.
“Nevertheless, Barclay’s policy, though I think it has been carried a great deal too far—for with troops who will fight as ours did yesterday he might have fought a dozen battles like that of Loubino, and would have compelled the French to advance slowly instead of in hot pursuit—has been justified to a great extent. From all I hear, the invading army has already suffered very great losses from fever and hardship, the effect of the weather, and from the number of stragglers who have been cut off and killed by the peasantry. Their transport has especially suffered, vast numbers of their horses having died; and in a campaign like this, transport is everything. In the various fights that have taken place since they entered Russia, they have probably suffered a heavier loss than the Russians, as the latter have always fought on the defensive; and the French loss has fallen on Napoleon’s best troops, while the Russian army is all equally good.
“Lastly, although the Russians are discontented at their continued retreat, their morale does not seem to have suffered in any way, and it is probable that the long marches, the inability to bring on a general engagement, the distance from home, and the uncertainty about the future has told heavily upon that of the French, who are vastly more susceptible to matters of this kind than are the Russians. You will remain with the headquarter staff, and I wish you, while I am away, to obtain accurate details of the movements of the various columns, and to write a full report every evening of the march and of all matters of interest. I do not want you to forward these to me, but to keep them for future reference. I hope to rejoin before any further fighting takes place.”
Sir Robert reached St. Petersburg on the 24th of August, but it was not until ten days later that he saw the Emperor, who had gone with Lord Cathcart, the British Ambassador, to meet the King of Sweden, and to conclude the negotiations that secured his co-operation. The information that General Wilson had brought of the admirable behaviour of the army did much to allay the alarm that prevailed in St. Petersburg; and, after dining with the Emperor on the evening of the arrival of the latter at his capital, he had a long private interview with him. The Emperor had already been made acquainted with the dissatisfaction in the army, and Marshal Kutusow had been sent to replace General Barclay, and he asked Sir Robert whether he thought the new commander would be able to restore subordination and confidence in the army. Sir Robert replied that he had met the marshal, and had informed him of the exact state of things there: that the latter had conjured him to acquaint the Emperor with the fullest details, and in accordance with that request, and in order to prevent his Majesty having the pain of hearing it from the lips of one of his own subjects—who perhaps would be less able to convince him of the intense feeling of loyalty to himself that still prevailed—he had consented to be the mouthpiece of the generals of the army. He then reported to him the interviews that he had had with the general officers, suppressing the names of those present, and the message they had desired him to deliver.
The Emperor was greatly moved. However, the manner in which the general fulfilled the mission with which he was charged, and his assurances that the act of seeming insubordination and defiance of the imperial authority was in no way directed against him, but against his advisers, whom they believed to be acting in the interests of Napoleon, had their effect, and the Emperor promised to give the matter every consideration, and to answer him definitely on the following day. At the next meeting he gave Sir Robert his authority to assure the army of his determination to continue the war against Napoleon while a Frenchman remained in arms on Russian soil, and that, if the worst came to the worst, he would remove his family far into the interior, and make any sacrifice rather than break that engagement. At the same time, while he could not submit to dictation in the matter of his ministers, he could assure them that these should in no way influence him to break this promise.
During Sir Robert’s stay in St. Petersburg the Emperor took every occasion to show him marked favour, as if anxious to assure those whose views Sir Robert had represented, that he was in no way displeased with them for the attitude they had assumed; and upon his leaving to rejoin the army the Emperor directed him to repeat in the most formal manner his declaration that he would not enter into or permit any negotiations with Napoleon; and added that he would sooner let his beard grow to his waist, and eat potatoes in Siberia.
Frank had been active during the battle of Loubino. Sir Robert Wilson had taken up his post with Touchkoff during the action which was so desperately fought to cover the retreat of the main army, and Frank had acted as aide-de-camp, and, having carried orders to various parts of the field, had excellent opportunities of seeing the whole of the battle; and the Russian general in making his report of the engagement had mentioned his name among those who had rendered distinguished services. His horse had been shot under him, his cap had been carried away by a bullet, and he had received a slight flesh wound in his leg. Although this was of small consequence, it had caused the insertion of his name among those of the officers wounded in the battle. He was to see no more fighting for a time; for, although the army of Wittgenstein fought two or three severe actions with the divisions of St. Cyr and Oudinot, the main army fell back without again fighting until it took up the position that Marshal Kutusow had selected for giving battle.
CHAPTER XII
BORODINO
Barbarously
as the French army behaved on its advance to Smolensk, things were even worse as they left the ruined town behind them and resumed their journey towards Moscow. It seemed that the hatred with which they were regarded by the Russian peasantry was now even more than reciprocated. The destruction they committed was wanton and wholesale; the villages, and even the towns, were burnt down, and the whole country made desolate. It was nothing to them that by so doing they added enormously to the difficulties of their own commissariat; nothing that they were destroying the places where they might otherwise have found shelter on their return. They seemed to destroy simply for the sake of destruction, and to be animated by a burning feeling of hatred for the country they had invaded.
Since the days of the thirty years’ war in Germany, never had war been carried on in Europe so mercilessly and so destructively. As he saw the ruined homes or passed the bodies of peasants wantonly shot down, Julian Wyatt regretted bitterly that he had not been content to remain a prisoner at Verdun. Battles he had expected; but this destruction of property, this warring upon peaceful inhabitants, filled him with horror; his high spirits left him, and he no longer laughed and jested on the march, but kept on the way in the same gloomy silence that reigned among the greater part of his companions. When half way to Moscow a fresh cause of uneasiness manifested itself. The Russians no longer left their towns and villages for the French to plunder and burn, but, as they retreated, themselves applied fire to all the houses, with a thoroughness and method which showed that this was not the work of stragglers or camp-followers, but that it was the result of a settled plan. At last news came that the Russians had resolved to fight a pitched battle at Borodino, and the spirits of the army at once rose.