On the few days’ march to Vilnius, there was a further foretaste of things to come: the troops were soon overusing their supplies and consuming excessive rations.
They had been entirely unprepared for the intense summer heat and the appalling road which held up their wagons. They were also soon plagued by diarrhoea and dysentery. Soon they were falling by the wayside through exhaustion, disease, desertion and suicide at the rate of thousands a day. Arriving on the river Villa, a typically tragic and futile Napoleonic sacrifice of his men was ordered. Ségur sets the scene:
At Kovno, Napoleon was exasperated because the bridge over the river Villa had been thrown down by the Cossacks and opposed the passage of Marshal Oudinot. He affected to despise the obstacle – like everything else that opposed him – and ordered a squadron of his Polish Guard to swim the river. These fine fellows threw themselves into it without hesitation. At first they proceeded in good order and when out of their depth redoubled their exertions. They soon reached the middle of the river but the increased rapidity of the current broke their formation. Their horses then became frightened and were carried away by the violence of the torrent: they no longer swam but floated about in scattered groups; their riders struggled and made vain efforts; their strength gave way and they at last resigned themselves to their fate. Their destruction was certain: but it was for their country, it was in her presence and for the sake of their deliverer that they had devoted themselves; and even when on the point of being engulfed forever, they stopped their futile struggles, turned their faces towards Napoleon and exclaimed, ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ Three of them were witnessed who, with their heads still above the billows, repeated this cry and perished instantly. The army was struck with mingled horror and admiration. As to Napoleon, he supervised with anxiety and precision the measures necessary to save the greater number but without appearing affected: either from the habit of subduing his feelings; from considering the ordinary emotion of the heart as weaknesses in times of war (of which it was not for him to set the example and therefore necessary to suppress); or, finally, that he anticipated much greater misfortunes, compared with which the present was a mere trifle.
Napoleon had crossed the border with a vast and unwieldy army containing a huge proportion of subject foreign troops with far less motivation than the French and the Poles: there were, for example, 30,000 Italians, 30,000 Austrians, 28,000 Westphalians, 27,000 Saxons, 26,000 Bavarians, 20,000 Prussians and 30,000 other Germans.
He had also seriously underestimated his enemy. In 1808 Alexei Arakchev, the Russian minister of war, a hardline reactionary but a fine artillery officer and administrator, had begun the process of modernization that would be completed by his successor, General Barclay de Tolly. Arakchev introduced smaller 6- and 12-pound cannon and modern howitzers, bringing the Russian army’s complement up to 1,700 guns, to enable it to pursue a strategy of massed artillery attack. Barclay, who was of Scottish descent and was also unusual in that he had served fourteen years in the ranks of this aristocrat-dominated army, actually tried to improve conditions for the brutalized Russian peasant conscripts as well as seeking to train them in marksmanship and the use of bayonets.
At a time when the French were increasingly reliant upon huge massed divisions, which were much less wieldy than the smaller units of before, Barclay cut the big Russian divisions down into small mixed ones, each consisting of infantry, artillery and cavalry. He also introduced French-style corps into which the divisions would be integrated yet retain freedom of manoeuvre. Barclay encountered stiff resistance from the sixty-seven-year-old General Kutuzov, a fierce traditionalist.
The Russians had around 220,000 men available for the western front out of a total army of 600,000 men. This was divided between Barclay’s First Army of about 130,000 men, based to the north of Napoleon’s positions at Orissa on the Düna, and Bagration’s Second Army of 60,000 men, to the south of Napoleon’s army, based near the vast Pripet Marshes. Napoleon’s strategy was to divide the armies – which in fact he had already done – and with his enormous forces take on first one and then the other.
The Russians had intended to attack him on both flanks until they realized that the size of his army made this impossible. Ironically, a battle was what Napoleon most wanted, but his overwhelming force deterred the Russians from attacking. Under the Tsar’s plan, it was intended to make a stand at Orissa. But the fortress there, which had only just been built, was too small and only half completed. Caution set in: the Russians wisely decided to avoid a fight for the time being.
Napoleon remained for two weeks at Vilnius, setting up an administration for his new fiefdom of Lithuania. Meanwhile he sent off Murat, Ney and Oudinot in pursuit of Barclay de Tolly, and Davout and Jérôme in pursuit of Bagration. The French troops, already exhausted, failed to catch the latter’s smaller army in a giant pincer near Minsk. Jérôme, however, ordered his army to halt to deal with an issue of discipline involving embezzlement by General Vandamme, and Bagration consequently escaped the trap.
Napoleon furiously gave overall command to Davout, whereupon Jérôme flew into a rage and quit, returning to his Kingdom of Westphalia. Davout marched speedily forward to capture Minsk on 8 July, but Bagration had already escaped by marching sixty miles further on. To the north Barclay abandoned the useless fort at Orissa and made for Vitebsk, 200 miles from Vilnius, where he proposed to join his army to that of his aristocratic rival, Bagration, and make a stand against the French.
Chapter 76
VITEBSK
The French, plagued by shortages of staples, supplies, heat and disease, were facing the old problem of plundering. Ségur stated the position:
A situation of so much excess engendered fresh excesses. These rough men, when assailed by so many monstrous sufferings, could not remain reasonable. When they arrived near any dwellings they were famished. At first they asked: but either for want of being understood or from the refusal (or impossibility) of the inhabitants to satisfy their demands, quarrels generally arose. Then, as they became more and more exasperated with hunger, they became furious; and after tumbling either cottage or palace upside-down without finding the food they were in search of, they, in the violence of their despair, accused the inhabitants of being their enemies and revenged themselves upon them by destroying their property. There were some who actually destroyed themselves rather than proceed to such extremities: others, after having done so. These were the youngest. They placed their foreheads on their muskets and blew out their brains in the middle of the highroad. But many became hardened: one excess led them on to another, as people often get angry with the blows they inflict. Among the latter, some vagabonds took vengeance for their distress upon civilians. In the midst of so unfavourable an aspect of nature, they became denaturalised. Left to themselves at so great a distance from home, they imagined that everything was allowed them and that their own sufferings authorized them to make others suffer.
However, with Napoleon encamped outside Vitebsk, he was at last elated: the decisive battle he had long sought was about to happen. The Russians later claimed that their scorched earth policy was premeditated, as was their strategy of retreat. But they were not acting with any such forethought: they intended to fight at the first available opportunity. Although poisoning the wells at the approach of the French, they had not burnt the few villages in their path: there were simply too few to provision the huge invading force.
Murat’s cavalry had at last caught up with the Russian rearguard. With his usual fearlessness he charged into this. Ségur continued: ‘Murat’s cavalry, first into action, bore the brunt of the fighting and he himself led more than one charge. Once, to rescue a hard-pressed regiment, he dashed at the Russian horsemen with his staff and personal escort, some sixty sabres at most. It was one of the few occasions when he drew his diamond-hilted sword at the head of a charge. His life was saved by one of his equerries killing a Russian who was on the point of cutting him down.’
On 27 July Napole
on at last viewed the Russian army drawn up on the plain before Vitebsk. ‘Tomorrow at five o’clock, the sun of Austerlitz,’ he declared. Murat begged him in vain to attack at once, fearing that Barclay’s army would disappear overnight: in fact the latter intended to fight, only to be told the same evening that Bagration had withdrawn towards Smolensk.
Barclay decamped during the night, to Murat’s chagrin. When the French arrived the following morning, they found the countryside deserted and a single Russian soldier asleep under a bush. The same day Napoleon entered Vitebsk and threw his sword down on the table at his imperial headquarters. ‘Here I stop! Here I must look round me; rally, refresh my army and organize Poland. The campaign of 1812 is finished; that of 1813 will do the rest.’
He had sensibly decided to stop with the Dnieper and the Düna as his front line. Vitebsk was eminently defensible, with wooded hills which could be fortified. In the north his artillery would protect him; in the south the marshes provided a neutral boundary. He had conquered Lithuania and penetrated Russia; that was sufficient for one campaign. He would winter in Vitebsk and summon actors and courtesans from Paris, Warsaw and Vilnius to amuse his troops. Thirty-six bread ovens were ordered. Unsightly houses in front of the palace which was to be his winter quarters, were ordered to be pulled down.
When the impatient Murat urged him forward, Napoleon exhibited the caution of a Wellington or Washington: ‘Murat, the first campaign in Russia is finished: let us here plant our eagles. Two great rivers mark out our position; let us raise block-houses on that line; let our fires cross each other on all sides; let us form a battalion square, cannon at the angles and the exterior, and let the interior contain our quarters and our magazines. 1813 will see us at Moscow, 1814 at Petersburg. The Russian war is a war of three years.’
In this he showed wisdom and restraint: he had advanced nearly 400 miles against his foes and could claim a great achievement: his position was virtually impregnable. His supply lines were secure; and he could threaten Alexander with a new offensive the following year or impose a humiliating peace. It seemed that the middle-aged Napoleon was indeed a more mature and mellow man than the young hothead.
But as the days passed, the worm began to turn. The second greatest miscalculation in Napoleon’s career – the first was the invasion of Spain – was in the making: he became tempted, then seduced, then obsessed with the idea of conquering Moscow, an idea he had always flirted with. Ségur captured beautifully the process of temptation:
In the first instance he appeared hardly bold enough to confess to himself a project of such great audacity. But by degrees he assumed courage to look it in the face. He then began to deliberate and the state of great irresolution which tormented his mind affected his whole frame. He was seen to pace his apartments as if pursued by some dangerous temptation. Nothing could fix his attention. Every moment he began, quitted, and resumed his occupation. He walked about without any purpose, enquired the hour and remarked the weather. Completely absorbed, he stopped, then hummed a tune with an absent air and again began pacing.
In the midst of his perplexity he occasionally addressed the people he met with such half-sentences as, ‘Well! What shall we do? Shall we stay where we are, or advance? How is it possible to stop short in the midst of so glorious a career?’ He did not wait for their reply but still kept wandering about, as if he was looking for something or someone to end his indecision.
At length, quite sinking under the weight of such important considerations and in a way overwhelmed with this great uncertainty, he would throw himself on one of the beds which he had caused to be laid on the floor of his apartments. His body, exhausted by the heat and the struggles of his mind, could only bear a light garment. In this manner did he pass a portion of his days at Vitebsk.
But when his body was at rest, his spirit was only the more active. How many motives urged him towards Moscow! How to support at Vitebsk the weariness of seven winter months? He, who till then had always been the aggressor, was about to be reduced to a defensive role, a part unworthy of him, of which he had no experience and undeserving of his genius.
Moreover, at Vitebsk, nothing had been decided and yet, at what a distance was he already from France! Europe, then, would at length see him stopped: him, whom nothing had been able to stop! Would not the duration of the enterprise increase its danger? Ought he allow Russia time to arm herself completely? How long could he protract this uncertain condition without breaking the spell of his infallibility (which the resistance in Spain had already weakened) and without engendering dangerous hopes in Europe? What would be thought if it were known that a third of his army, dispersed or sick, were no longer in the ranks? It was indispensable, therefore, to dazzle the world quickly with the brilliance of a great victory and hide so many sacrifices under a heap of laurels.
If he remained at Vitebsk, he considered that he should have the displeasure, the whole expense and all the inconveniences and anxieties of a defensive position to bear; while at Moscow there would be peace, abundance, a reimbursement of the expenses of the war and immortal glory. He persuaded himself that boldness was the only prudential course; that it is the same with all hazardous undertakings, in which there is always risk at the beginning but frequently gain at the finish; that it was indispensable, therefore, to terminate this operation; to push it to the utmost, astonish the universe, beat down Alexander by daring and carry off a prize which might compensate so many losses.
Thus it was, that the same danger which perhaps ought to have recalled him to the Niemen or kept him stationary on the Düna urged him towards Moscow! Such is the nature of false positions: everything in them is perilous. There is only a choice of errors.
He had still to convince his generals. Although it was Moscow that tempted him, he did so by pretending that his real object was Smolensk, only fifty miles away. It nevertheless proved a difficult task. Caulaincourt argued against him stubbornly. Duroc presciently told him that the Russians were no more likely to make peace at Smolensk or at Moscow than at Vitebsk. Daru argued with faultless logic: ‘It is not a national war. The introduction of some English merchandise into Russia and even the restoration of the Kingdom of Poland are not sufficient reasons for engaging in so distant a war; neither your troops nor ourselves understand its necessity or its objects and, to say the least, all things recommend the policy of stopping where we now are.’
Napoleon overruled them all: he ordered his army on to Smolensk, with a characteristically brilliant flourish: he crossed the Dnieper to the south, crossing the bridge at Orsha and erecting four pontoons as a feint that suggested he would bypass the city.
The Russians were not suffering the problem of a single domineering leader, as the French were, but were plagued instead by a bitterly squabbling collective. The humble Barclay de Tolly and the aristocratic Bagration were at daggers drawn over strategy for their now united army. Bagration accused Barclay of cowardice in so many words, and appealed over his head to the Tsar. Barclay, whose strategy was in fact the correct one, was ordered to launch a cautious advance towards the French: as soon as he encountered French forces on 8 August, the cautious Barclay decided to withdraw to Smolensk, in the nick of time to reinforce the city from the main French threat now approaching from the south east.
Chapter 77
SMOLENSK AND BORODINO
On 14 August Ney attacked and repulsed Barclay’s rearguard at Krasnoi, some thirty miles west of Smolensk. There, inexplicably, the French paused to celebrate Napoleon’s forty-third birthday with due pomp and ceremony, which included a 100-gun salute. Two days later Murat reached Smolensk, Russia’s third biggest city. This picturesque city, straddling the Dnieper, consisted of the medieval old town in the south, protected by a huge rampart, a wall ten feet thick and twenty feet high, boasting no fewer than thirty-two towers, well equipped with artillery. Around the walls were a huddle of wooden huts. To the north was the St Petersburg suburb consisting of more recent buildings. As Murat’s advance cavalry a
nd Ney’s infantry reached the city, they did not hesitate to attack the well-manned defences, losing some 10,000 men in the process. Murat, who had bitterly opposed his brother-in-law’s decision to advance, seemed to be courting his own death in battle. The French attacks failed to make any impression on the thick walls of the city.
Napoleon’s decision to stage a frontal assault had been a fatal miscalculation: if he had advanced eastwards and then northwards he could have cut the road between Smolensk and Moscow and trapped the 125,000-strong Russian army. But Barclay, anticipating this, decided that discretion was the better part of valour and withdrew during the night of 17–18 August after a blazing row with Bagration who wanted to stay and fight.
Junot, remarkably, had managed to enter the city, but failed to press the attack, to Napoleon’s fury. (Junot, one of France’s finest marshals, was so abashed that he turned suicidal and finally succeeded in throwing himself from a window less than a year later.) During the same night the French observed fires starting in different parts of the city, eventually erupting into a single vast conflagration which Napoleon likened to the eruption of Vesuvius: the Russians were burning down the city as they withdrew: it was an awesome display of grim, ruthless determination.
The War of Wars Page 83