The Campaigns of Napoleon

by David G Chandler

  The retreat began on the 120th day of the campaign. At first everything went reasonably well, although the rate of movement was seriously hampered by the impedimenta, and the army took five days to cover the first sixty miles. After two days of heavy rain, the weather turned fine, but the nights were already cold. There were, at first, few signs of Russian activity. Kutusov was aware of Napoleon’s move the day it started, his vastly superior cavalry bringing him plenty of intelligence; but the Russian general appeared to be in the grip of complete lethargy. As we have seen no effort was made to follow up after Vinkovo; now, on the 19th, no immediate attempt was made to block Napoleon’s road. Only on the 22nd did Doctorov’s corps leave Tarutino, marching to shadow Napoleon’s main column and then slipping ahead in an attempt to seize the important road junction of Maloyaroslavets before Eugène’s IVth Corps (at the head of Napoleon’s main column) could occupy it. Kutusov eventually bestirred the rest of his army and made in leisurely fashion for the vicinity of Afonassova and Gontsharavo some twenty-five five miles north of Kaluga to support his lieutenant. He arrived there in force about 1:00

  P.M. on the 24th.

  Meanwhile, a fair-sized action had developed for control of the bridge crossing the River Lusha immediately to the north of Maloyaroslavets. On the evening of the 23rd, General Delzons, commanding the 13th Infantry Division of Eugène’s corps, found the town unoccupied except for a swarm of Cossacks, which he soon drove off. He reported back to the Emperor that the town was safely secured, but then most unwisely proceeded to withdraw all but two battalions of his command to the banks of the river. During the night, Doctorov arrived in force with great stealth, surprised the outposts, and drove the forward battalions out of the town and then the entire division back over the bridge. Doctorov at once began to fortify the position, and several batteries of artillery were brought onto the neighboring ridges to command the approaches to the vital bridge.

  As soon as it was light on the 24th, a desperate battle began. Eugène’s first attempts to send Delzons back over the river were thwarted by the fire of the enfilading Russian guns, and it was only after the French corps’ artillery had been brought into action that the 13th Division succeeded in regaining the south bank. After a spirited bayonet charge, the town again passed into French hands, but only temporarily. The town changed hands several times during the morning hours as each contestant brought up fresh troops in turn. At one moment, Doctorov’s tired troops were almost overwhelmed, but then General Raevski’s corps, forming the advance guard of Kutusov’s approaching host, made a timely appearance in support. This reinforcement compelled Eugene to send in his last division (General Pino), but this reserve again tipped the scale in the French favor, the Russians deciding to abandon the town shortly after midday. They only drew back, however, to the nearby ridges, and their guns continued to sweep both the bridge over the Lusha and the roads leading out of the town.

  By one o’clock Napoleon and the greater part of the Grande Armée were lined up along the river’s northern bank, but the Emperor decided not to order any large-scale crossing in view of the well-sited Russian batteries, which would have wrought grave casualties at the bottleneck formed by the bridge. Later in the afternoon Doctorov retired toward Kutusov’s main body, taking his guns with him, but Napoleon contented himself with passing some artillery onto the south bank. Thinking that Kutusov might attack at very short notice, the Emperor concluded that it was still too dangerous to cross the river in force, and so the battle petered out into an affair of skirmishers. The French claimed a victory, but it was dearly bought at a cost of seven generals and 4,000 Italians killed and wounded. It was not, however, in any sense a decisive success, and the Grande Armée spent the rest of the day licking its wounds.

  Early the next day (the 25th), the Emperor carried out a personal reconnaissance of the south bank. This proved quite an exciting occasion. Sergeant Bourgogne of the Imperial Guard was an eyewitness of an incident which almost resulted in Napoleon being taken prisoner. As he rode forward with his staff, escorted by the usual two squadrons of Chasseurs of the Guard, a formation of Cossacks suddenly appeared from a nearby wood and charged straight for him. General Rapp and the escort only just succeeded in driving the enemy off, and one Cossack fought his way to within twenty yards of the Emperor. Bourgogne was a member of a Guard formation rushed up to the rescue. “As we came onto the plain, we saw the Emperor almost in the midst of the Cossacks, surrounded by generals and staff officers. One of the latter was wounded through a singular mischance. At the instant when the cavalry entered the plain, several officers were forced to draw their sabers to protect themselves and the Emperor, who was in their midst and might have been taken. One of the staff officers, however, after killing a Cossack and wounding several more, lost his hat, and then dropped his saber. Finding himself weaponless, he rushed at a Cossack and snatched away his lance and began to defend himself with it. At that very moment he was spotted by a Horse Grenadier of the Guard, who, mistaking him for a Cossack, because of his green cloak and lance, rode him down and passed his saber through his body.”8 We learn from Marbot, however, that the unfortunate staff officer survived his wound and in due course regained France in safety—which is more than can be said for a great many more who participated in this skirmish.

  Whether this disturbing though trivial affair influenced the Emperor’s decision, we do not know,* but after holding a discordant council of war with his senior officers, he ordered the planned march toward Kaluga to be discontinued forthwith. Instead, the Grande Armée was to retrace its steps to Oshigovo and then march for Mojaisk—thus returning to the route used to reach Moscow a month before.

  Some commentators believe that this momentous decision represents the critical turning point in Napoleon’s career. His original plan of driving off Kutusov and then heading for Kaluga and Smolensk was undoubtedly the best he could have pursued under the circumstances, but to abandon the movement so precipitately resulted in throwing away every advantage earned during the preceding six days. At the very least he might have opted for the alternative route through Medyn which lay invitingly open before him; but to revert to the original axis of advance, surrendering all initiative, was to court disaster. Not only did the decision remove all pressure from Kutusov and throw away the hardwon fruits of Maloyaroslavets, it also wasted a precious week of comparatively fine weather. In the opinion of General Wilson, an English observer of the campaign: “Napoleon’s star no longer guided his course, for after the [Russian] rear guard had retired, had any, even the smallest reconnaissance, advanced to the brow of the hill over the ravine—had the slightest demonstration of a continued offensive movement been made—Napoleon would have obtained a free passage for his army on the Kaluga or Medinj roads, through a fertile and rich country to the Dnieper; for Kutusov, resolved on falling back behind the Oka, had actually issued the orders ‘to retire there in case of the enemy’s approach to his new position.’”9 Thus, after winning a small tactical advantage, Napoleon in effect conceded a huge strategical victory to Kutusov who had no wish to fight a further action.

  The Emperor’s powers of discernment and intuition were far from their peak at this time. After a slow and cautious approach, he had won an indecisive battle, only thereafter to select the worst possible route for his army’s further march when a better lay open before him. A combination of this uncustomary slowness, irresolution and excessive caution, was dooming his army to gradual extinction as surely as a major defeat in the field.

  From this day on, Napoleon habitually carried a bag containing a lethal poison on a string around his neck. The prospect of captivity continually haunted him.

  72

  COLLAPSE OF AN ARMY

  The harsh realities of defeat gradually began to be experienced. The cohesion of the Grande Armée slowly began to crack under the unaccustomed strain. Food supplies became shorter; more men threw away their arms and swelled the multitude of stragglers which hung around the heels of the rear
guard. The column—which eventually stretched for almost fifty miles—painfully made its way through Borovsk and Vereya to Mojaisk. Then the veterans underwent the unpleasant experience of recrossing the field of Borodino. “The ground, ploughed up by cannonballs,” related Marbot, “was covered with the debris of helmets, cuirasses, wheels, weapons, rags of uniforms—and 30,000 corpses half eaten by wolves! The Emperor’s troops passed rapidly by, casting shuddering glances at this immense tomb.”10

  The march went on, passing through Gzhatsk, and October 31 saw the Emperor and the Guard reach Viasma, the first real staging point on the westward withdrawal. Here Napoleon lingered throughout November I, trying to assess the overall position facing the various parts of his army. He found little to cheer him in the couriers’ bags. On the far-away southern flank, Schwarzenberg appeared to be withdrawing toward the River Bug, a maneuver better suited for the defense of Warsaw than for the protection of the flank of the unfortunate Grande Armée. Admiral Tshitshagov was reported between Brest-Litovsk and Slonim, apparently well placed to move across Napoleon’s path. The news from the northern flank was, if anything, still worse. Wittgenstein’s command, currently near Tshashniki, was evidently proving more than a match for both the IInd and IXth Corps, and was drawing ever closer to Napoleon’s proposed route over the crucial Berezina crossings. Victor’s corps had originally been intended to serve as a general reserve for both flank forces, but by late October it was fully committed in support of St. Cyr. Thus only the garrison of Smolensk was available to assist Napoleon and the main body in the event of an emergency, but there were hopes that a fresh division of reinforcements commanded by Baraguey d’Hilliers would reach Smolensk from Poland in time to meet the Grande Armée. However, the broad arrowhead of the original French strategical penetration into Russia was rapidly shrinking into a narrow central corridor beset by enemy forces from three sides.

  Napoleon’s extended column was already under perpetual pressure from the Cossacks and Kutusov’s advance guard, commanded by General Miloradovitch. Not surprisingly, therefore, Napoleon decided to press on without delay for Smolensk, hoping that the Grande Armée would still be able to find shelter for the winter in its vicinity, or at worst, a little further westward around Vitebsk and Orsha. The well-stocked magazines of Smolensk should also alleviate the growing starvation of his men. “It did not take long for hunger to attack the French army,” noted Captain Roeder in his diary. “The regiments began to dissolve and collapse, horses perished in thousands, and every day there were burned quantities of baggage and munitions wagons which had no teams to draw them. All the common people in the provinces of Moscow and Kaluga were under arms to avenge the atrocities they had suffered. Confined to the great road, the whole army was now living almost entirely off horseflesh.”11

  By the evening of November 2, Napoleon had reached Slavkovo. In his wake the long column straggled onward through Viasma, but all at once there was fighting toward the rear as the Russians tried to divide the French army into three parts. On November 3 Miloradovitch suddenly attacked the rear guard, currently provided by the Ist Corps, near the town of Fiodoroivskoy, with a force of 20,000 cavalry well supported with infantry. In no time Davout’s command was cut off from the rest of the column and surrounded on all sides. The situation remained serious until Eugène, moving some little way ahead of the Prince of Eckmühl, divined the Ist Corps’ peril and sent back two divisions of the IVth Corps to its aid. This intervention enabled Davout to run the gauntlet of the Russian forces, albeit with very heavy loss, and rejoin his colleague the Viceroy.

  All was not yet over, however. For a time it appeared that both formations might be destroyed piecemeal, but then more assistance arrived in the guise of General Razout’s division of Ney’s corps, sent back from Viasma. The IIIrd Corps had been left at this city by Napoleon with orders to take over the duties of rear guard from Davout after the main army had cleared its gates. “Write to the Duke of Elchingen,” Napoleon instructed Berthier on the 3rd, “that as soon as he has assumed command of the rear guard he is to make the army file along as fast as possible, for we are wasting what is left of the good weather without marching.”12 However, during the same day Ney, too, had undergone attack from part of Kutusov’s main force, operating from near Dubrovno to the southeast of Viasma. This rather halfhearted attempt by the Russians to drive another wedge between Napoleon (VIIth Corps, the Guard) and the rest of his army was driven off with considerable loss, leaving Ney free to succor his colleagues further east.

  Thanks to his exertions, by nightfall the French column was again united, with the IIIrd Corps at its designated station in the rear. The ferocity of the day’s fighting, however, left a lasting mark on the Ist Corps. Formerly the best-disciplined and smartest formation in the army after the Guard, it now rapidly deteriorated into a rabble without cohesion or organization. The condition of Eugène’s command was little better, but the IIIrd Corps, under the command of the famous Marshal Ney, was about to enter the most glorious chapter of its fighting history. As for the Russians, they were clearly becoming bolder. In fact Napoleon’s position was already becoming critical before the completion of the first stage of the retreat. However, the Emperor still clung to the illusion that all would yet be well. He claimed that the condition of the Russian forces was even worse than that of his own army; he jocularly compared the continuing fair weather to happier autumns spent at Fontainebleau and accused those who tried to warn him of the coming frosts of alarmism. He still claimed that he expected the Tsar to come to terms any day.

  By this time there were as many as 30,000 stragglers at the end of the column, hampering the operations of the rear guard as it continually turned to drive off the implacable pursuers. Very soon there were only a handful of mounted cavalry left in the whole Grande Armèe, and the few vehicles that remained on the move were packed with sick and wounded. Many of these unfortunates fell from their uncertain perches to perish beneath the hooves and wheels of the crawling convoys, but no man lifted a hand to save them, or even drag them out of the way. It was now a case of the survival of the fittest, and every man for himself. The weary miles slipped away slowly but the head of the column at last began to approach Smolensk, the promised haven.

  Then the first flurries of snow fell on November 3, and within a week the frosts became severe. The suffering of the men rose proportionately as the weather worsened. “I must not conceal from Your Highness that three days of suffering have so dispirited the men that at this moment I believe them incapable of making any serious effort,” wrote Eugene to Berthier on November 8 from the River Vop. “Numbers of them have died of hunger or cold, and many more in their despair have allowed themselves to be captured by the enemy.”13

  The Emperor’s seemingly unshaken composure now began to desert him, although he was at great pains to disguise his growing anxiety from all but his closest associates. One immediate cause for alarm was the arrival of dispatches from Paris on the 6th reporting the abortive Malet conspiracy. It appeared that General Malet, a patient at a mental institution, after escaping from supervision on October 22, had made an attempt to seize power in the hope of restoring a republican form of government. Announcing that the Emperor had perished in Russia, the lunatic induced several colonels of the Paris garrison to turn out their men at dead of night and then proceeded to arrest the minister of police and several other key individuals. His bluff was called when the military commandant of Paris demanded to see proof of Malet’s assertions and was promptly shot dead on the spot. Little by little order was restored and the conspirators rounded up as the government began to stir from its state of stunned amazement. The whole incident was over in twelve hours and was clearly the work of a madman, but a disturbing number of influential men had allowed themselves—temporarily at least—to be taken in by the affair and no one seemed to have rallied as a matter of course to the young King of Rome. Even the prefect of the Seine had carried out Malet’s behests. Napoleon’s long absence was clearly
weakening his authority at the very heart of the Empire, and even more significant was the fact that this commotion took place before any tidings of the retreat from Moscow had reached Paris. It would appear that his dynasty was not as firmly established as he had previously cared to believe.

  The Emperor also awoke to the peril posed by the progress being made by Wittgenstein’s and Tshitshagov’s forces on the flanks of his proposed line of retreat. Should these two parts of the Russian army succeed in linking up in the vicinity of Minsk or the Berezina, Napoleon would find his communications blocked by at least 70,000 men. At all costs, therefore, this junction must be forestalled or averted. Writing to Marshal Victor (commanding the IXth and IInd Corps) on November 7, Berthier outlined his Imperial master’s wishes. “His Majesty orders you to reunite your six divisions and to attack the foe [Wittgenstein] without delay, pushing him back to the Dvina; you must retake Polotsk. This movement is most important. Within a few days your rear areas may be overwhelmed by Cossacks; tomorrow the Emperor’s army will be at Smolensk, extremely fatigued after a march of 120 leagues without a halt. Take the offensive—the safety of the whole army depends on you; every day’s delay can mean a calamity. The army’s cavalry is on foot because the cold has killed all the horses. March at once—it is the order of the Emperor and of sheer necessity.”14

  On November 9, the Emperor reached Smolensk only to find fresh disappointments. The sorely needed food stores were found to be severely depleted, this being the work of the flood of retiring administrative units preceding the main army. Although measures were taken to conserve what was left, the troops—even the Guard—threw over the bonds of discipline and indulged in an orgy of looting and destruction. As a result, food supplies that might have been eked out to suffice the army’s needs for two weeks were dissipated in three days of wild excess and at the end of it the food shortage was as grave as ever.