by Philip Dwyer
Once the army had penetrated some distance into Russia, the villages they did come across were devastated, pillaged, burnt to the ground by retreating Russian troops or indeed by advance parties of the Grande Armée.59 ‘One would have had to witness it to be aware of all the barbarity and the horror of the spectacle.’60 By the time the army had reached Viasma, some 160 kilometres from Smolensk – what some in the Grande Armée referred to as ‘Schnapps town’ (ville au schnapps)61 – at the end of August and the beginning of September, most had been forced to sleep in the open and on the ground for at least a month.62 On balmy summer nights around a campfire, this could be a pleasant enough experience, even if the nights were very short in the northern hemisphere at that time of the year, lasting only a few hours.63 Even on those nights, it was difficult enough sleeping after an exhausting day’s march, but when the weather turned bad, when it rained, which it seems to have done regularly in September,64 or, as we shall see on the army’s return, when it snowed for lengthy periods, the impact on the men was debilitating, even fatal. It is difficult to make fires and dry off when the rains do not let up for days on end, with all the consequences for men’s health. Their physical condition was worsened by the lack of food, the heat of the day followed by often bitterly cold nights, even at that time of the year.65 Much has been written about the retreat from Moscow, but often to the neglect of the long, hot difficult march that preceded the entry into that city, not to mention the sickness caused by the autumn rains.66 Men literally died of the heat, thirst and hunger, especially since the villages, the only places to contain wells, were few and far between, and even then retreating Russians often threw bodies into them to poison the water.67 For those not at the head of the army, and who followed in its wake, the sight of roads covered with dead men and horses could hardly have been good for morale.68
These are the kinds of things the survivors remembered many years later – the hot sun, men reduced to drinking filthy water, the few provisions available, the lack of wine and meat, and the consuming nature of constant pain, fatigue, thirst and hunger.69 Some of those who had campaigned in Egypt or Spain claimed that the heat was more oppressive in Russia.70 Since the roads were made of sand, clouds of dust, like thick fog, were kicked up as soon as the troops set off, eyes, ears, nostrils quickly filling. Some had trouble breathing, while others could not see further than two paces in front of them, and it became impossible to distinguish the colour of uniforms.71 One way around this was to have the drummers beat at the head of the column so that men did not lose their way.72 Some were reduced to drinking horses’ urine from ruts in the road in an attempt to quench their thirst.73 Under those conditions – where dehydration and malnutrition were prevalent – it was only a question of time before illnesses like dysentery and diarrhoea started to make inroads.74
Napoleon’s later campaigns, when compared with his first impressive entry on to the military scene in Italy in 1796, have often been criticized for their lack of flair. This was never more the case than in Russia. Part of the explanation may have to do with age. At forty-three, he could not sustain the same intensity as he had managed in his younger years. Moreover, he was now a profoundly political animal and much of his time was taken up with administrative matters that had not burdened him in his early career. From 28 June 1812, for example, he spent eighteen days in Vilnius sorting out correspondence and reorganizing the army, a necessary thing, but he thereby lost what little initiative he had.75 It has been described by one military theorist as one of the worst mistakes of his career.76
Nevertheless, by the time he reached Vitebsk on 27 July, he assumed that the Russians camped before him would, this time, give battle.77 He awoke the next morning, however, only to find that they had once again slipped away. During the night, Cossacks had kept the campfires burning to give the impression that the army was still there.78 The Russians had retired in such good order that, according to some at least, a general feeling of unease began to grip the French officers who witnessed the skill of troops who retreated without leaving a single cannon, a single weapon or a single man behind. For the first but not the last time, Napoleon considered going no further. He had already lost one-third of his army without so much as engaging the enemy in a battle, and without having yet reached Russia proper. This is not what he had expected, and what to do next obviously preoccupied him to the point where some witnesses recall a perplexed, somewhat indecisive Napoleon. On returning to headquarters (28 July), inside his tents, he is supposed to have taken off his sword and thrown it on a table covered in maps, exclaiming, ‘I am going to stop here, I want to take stock, to rally, to rest my Army and organize Poland. The 1812 campaign is over. That of 1813 will do the rest.’79 According to his valet, he slept particularly poorly during his stay at Vitebsk, while Caulaincourt claimed that he had never seen Napoleon ‘in such a state of irritability’.80
It would have been a good idea to stay put. Most of his generals thought it was time to stop and consolidate.81 Berthier is supposed to have pleaded with tears in his eyes; Murat and possibly Davout seem to have been the only generals eager to push on. This was at least a sign that Napoleon was surrounded by men who were not afraid to speak their minds. How realistic an option stopping was (it was after all only July), or whether their views were born of frustration, exhaustion, depression and the realization that the Russian landscape was like nothing they had ever encountered before, is difficult to tell. Marching ten, twelve, fourteen hours a day, the proximity of a village, a creek or a muddy pond determined where they would halt for the night.82 Evenings and nights, however, were spent scouring the countryside for food and water. The army’s strength was nevertheless still reasonably good at this stage. Knowing the supply situation to be disastrous and that the men had suffered as a result, in an astounding piece of theatre Napoleon berated the supply commissioners in front of the men at one parade. It was a show to remind the men how much their Emperor cared for them, and by all accounts it worked.83 Once rested – the following two weeks were spent putting the army back in order, allowing stragglers to catch up and supplying his troops84 – Napoleon seems to have taken on a more positive, even brash tone. But he remained agitated nevertheless and unsure how to proceed. He had never before faced an enemy that refused to stand ground and fight. What seems to have made up his mind was news that the Russian army had halted at Smolensk, and that Bagration’s Second Army had also arrived there in early August. He called a council of war in the first week of August and declared that he was determined to end the war that year. The decisive battle he sought looked as if it was in reach, at Smolensk, and even if the Russians failed to give battle there, he was sure they would do so before Moscow. What he needed was a major victory so that he could, as one general caustically put it, ‘hide so many sacrifices under a heap of laurels’.85
This was a new development. Moscow had only ever been vaguely talked about before but it was now given expression by Napoleon. Some of those present at the war council expressed concern about this change of attitude. Objections about supply issues were raised but brushed aside. Berthier went so far as to bring the head of the commissariat, Pierre Daru, to Napoleon to hammer home the seriousness of the supply situation, which he warned would probably grow worse as the army continued to march east. With the various detachments that had been posted in garrison towns to protect supply lines along the way, the army was reduced to less than half the original size of the invading army.86 However, faced with the choice of bedding down in Vitebsk or returning to the Vistula, more or less an admission of defeat if only in his own mind, Napoleon decided that the only realistic option was to push on, at least to Smolensk where there was the possibility of a battle and victory.
‘The Corpse of a Dead Enemy Always Smells Good’
Smolensk was surrounded by a crenellated brick wall about eighteen metres high and was cut in two by the River Dnieper (the wall can still be seen today). It was not, for all that, a strong defensive position since the city cou
ld be easily outflanked. Despite that, Barclay was coming under strong pressure not only from his own generals but also from Alexander to make a stand.87 At a council of war on 6 August, he was therefore forced to go over to the offensive despite strong personal doubts about the wisdom of such a move; he was still convinced that the best approach was not yet to risk the destruction of the First and Second Russian armies.
Napoleon’s army arrived before the walls of Smolensk on 15 August facing a force of probably no more than 15,000 men.88 Rather than take the city, however, as he probably could have the next morning, he dithered. By the morning of 17 August, Barclay’s army of 30,000 men was entrenched in the city, with another 170,000 occupying the hills on the other side of the Dnieper under Bagration. Napoleon and his troops could clearly see the enemy as they took up position. His decision to attack the defences head on, rather than attempt a flanking manoeuvre, forcing Barclay to abandon the city, appears in retrospect to have been a mistake, but seems to have been made out of a desire to engage with the enemy immediately, so that the Russians could not once again avoid battle. Besides, scouts sent out to find a point at which the Dnieper could be crossed returned with conflicting reports.89
The first day of the assault was bloody – 9,000 killed and wounded in the Grande Armée to 11,000 Russian losses – but the city held despite the French mortar shells setting many of the city’s wooden houses on fire. It was Barclay, for reasons that are not entirely clear and in the face of vigorous and vociferous opposition from generals and senior officers, who decided to abandon the city to its fate. Here too Napoleon let the Russian army slip out of his grasp by not taking an active enough part in the battle. On 19 August, he retired to Smolensk at five in the evening, thinking he had engaged only the Russian rearguard.
On 18 August, the French entered a town on fire or still smoking. ‘Soldiers who had wanted to escape [the fire] had fallen into the streets, suffocated by the flames, and had been burnt. Many no longer resembled men: they were shapeless masses of grilled and charred flesh, that only the iron of a musket, a sword or a few shreds of clothing found beside them made recognizable as corpses.’90 At around two o’clock that night, when Napoleon was still near his tent near the château of Ivanovskaya, in the company of Berthier, Bessières and Caulaincourt, they were all contemplating the city on fire, which lit up the horizon. ‘An eruption of Vesuvius!’ Napoleon said to Caulaincourt, according to the latter’s Memoirs. ‘“Is not that a fine sight . . . !” “Horrible, Sire.” “Bah!”, rejoined the Emperor. “Remember, gentlemen, what one of the Roman emperors said, the corpse of a dead enemy always smells good!”’91 His officers were shocked by the remark, but did no more than look at each other in that meaningful way people do when they share the same thoughts. It was obvious to them then that Napoleon would not remain at Smolensk but that he would push on. Many of those who experienced Smolensk considered it the worst battle they had faced, including Austerlitz, Eylau and Wagram.92 Others began to wonder what it was all for, and openly to question the direction of the campaign, even those generals who had admired Napoleon.93
In fact, Napoleon seems to have been at a loss what to do next. The same choices facing him at Vitebsk now faced him at Smolensk: he could march on to Moscow or St Petersburg, head south into the Ukraine and Kiev, or bring the campaign to a halt and consolidate his gains.94 It would have made sense to halt and consolidate, given the state of discipline and morale among his forces, and the fact that his communication lines were now stretched to about a thousand kilometres. That, however, was not without its own problems. Lithuania and Belorussia would have found it difficult to feed an army of considerable size for any length of time, something that would have been exacerbated by the onset of winter. Uppermost in Napoleon’s mind was that, if he did push on to Moscow, the army would be in a better position to live off the land. He was, after all, only 450 kilometres from Moscow – that is, about two weeks’ march – with a couple of months of good campaign weather ahead in the midst of a harvest season in the region around Moscow that would have enabled him to feed his men and horses, and in the face of an enemy army that did not appear capable of resisting the invasion.
There were other considerations, strategic and political.95 To cease now, in the middle of summer, would give the Russians at least six months to regroup and redeploy troops that were presently tied up in Moldavia, Finland and the Caucasus. A strategic withdrawal would also allow Russia and its allies, Britain and Sweden, to claim a victory, even if it were not one, and thus do damage to Napoleon’s reputation. All of these and other factors had to be weighed. Napoleon may have said shortly after the battle that they would be in Moscow in less than a month and would have peace in six weeks, but in actuality he appears to have been plagued by doubts. According to one witness, on the eve of the battle of Smolensk, he did consider setting up winter headquarters at Vitebsk, to consolidate his gains. ‘We will drive them a little further back, to ensure that we are left undisturbed. I will fortify my positions. We will rest the troops, and from this base we shall organize the country and see how Alexander likes that . . . I will establish my headquarters at Vitebsk. I will raise Poland in arms, and later on I will choose, if necessary, between Petersburg and Moscow.’96 Much of this was just wishful thinking, although many (but not all) in his entourage – Berthier, Duroc, Rapp, Caulaincourt and Narbonne – believed that the conquest of Poland had been achieved and that it was time to call a halt to the campaign.97
If Napoleon sounded them out it was to get an idea of how they were feeling, of how committed they were to the campaign, and of what morale was like.98 The more he was drawn into Russia, however, the more he found himself in a bind. He could not stop where he was for any length of time. He could not retreat; it would be an avowal of defeat. His only choice was to continue to advance. And the more he advanced the more anxious he became about what he was doing. If one day Napoleon considered calling a halt, the next he was thinking about pushing on. This could happen when reports came in of Russian troop movements that led him to believe another battle and another victory were possible. In those moments, the prospect of overtaking the enemy, of pressing ahead quickly so that the enemy could not escape, somehow forced him, obliged him almost against his will, to press on.99 Smolensk certainly gave Napoleon food for thought, especially since there were indications that the Russians themselves might have set the town alight.100 The inevitability of war and campaigning – that is, the pursuit of the enemy until victory – eventually won out over any practical considerations. Peace was the word most uttered in conjunction with Moscow, according to Baron Fain. He believed that reaching that city would ultimately bring the campaign to an end.101
Borodino
After Smolensk, it had become impossible for Alexander to continue to ignore the complaints about the poor state of the army, its profound demoralization and its disorganization. In addition, many Russian generals felt that it was shameful to retreat in the face of the enemy and their ire was directed, irrationally, against Barclay and Bagration as ‘foreigners’ (they were both of German descent). Alexander decided, therefore, to appoint Mikhail Ilarionovich Golenischev-Kutuzov commander-in-chief with both Barclay and Bagration under him. Alexander did not like Kutuzov, especially since the debacle at Austerlitz where, against Kutuzov’s advice, he had given battle, but it would have been difficult now for him to contradict the advice given to him by all of his senior military advisers. Moreover, public opinion in Petersburg at the time was very much in favour of Kutuzov.102 Under the circumstances, with a foreign army now deep in Russian territory, Alexander may very well have thought it dangerous to ignore public opinion.103 While it is an exaggeration to say that he might have faced a palace coup if he did not stand and fight, there is no doubt that grumblings at court were making themselves heard and may have been worrying him.104
Kutuzov was sixty-five years old, overweight, mostly blind and badly disfigured (a musket ball had penetrated one of his temples and passed ri
ght through his head, leaving him scarred and blind in one eye). He rode badly (he often preferred to ride in a carriage), and often fell asleep in the middle of meetings. Indolent, slovenly and mistrustful of everyone in his entourage, he was nevertheless considered intelligent and cunning and was loved by his troops. His qualities as a commander, however, are questionable and he was certainly mistrusted by the senior officers under his command. He is supposed to have advised Alexander as early as April, well before the Grande Armée had crossed the Niemen, to draw the war out and to avoid giving battle; Napoleon would be defeated in that way much as Charles XII had been defeated.105 But pressure to give battle made Alexander face the enemy.
That is why a decision was made to stand and defend Moscow, at Borodino.
A fine but cold rain accompanied an autumn wind on the night of 6 September. Add the agitation that habitually accompanies the eve of a great battle, and one can easily understand how tired most of the men must have been, especially after a long day’s march. Napoleon does not appear to have had more than a few hours’ sleep before getting up with his entourage and touring the lines at dawn the next day.106 The morning was fine but cold, with patches of fog here and there that lifted at about ten o’clock. To some, it appeared a repeat of conditions at Austerlitz. That same morning, Napoleon received a portrait of the King of Rome about which he was very excited – ‘an emotion he could hardly contain’107 – and which he was keen to show everyone. On the eve of a battle, even the most intrepid warrior is subject to feelings over which he has little control.108