The Campaigns of Napoleon

by David G Chandler

  However, it was evidently necessary to reinforce the Duke of Belluno’s left flank without delay for recriminations, and so Napoleon instructed the Baden brigade (withdrawn the previous afternoon) to recross to the further bank. This proved easier to order than to perform. The Badeners experienced the greatest difficulty in making headway against the frenzied human tide flowing in the opposite direction over the bridges, and although the infantry at length crossed over, it proved out of the question to transport their accompanying guns. This reinforcement, however, proved of the greatest assistance to Victor and helped him hold his ground for most of the rest of the day. Meanwhile, on the west bank, further heavy fighting was also being experienced as Tshitshagov again advanced in force against Oudinot’s thinning line. For a time it appeared that the IInd Corps would break under the pressure. So serious did the situation become that at one stage the Emperor ordered the Old Guard, his sacred reserve, to advance in Oudinot’s support. That gallant officer, however, succeeded in rallying his reeling line before the Guard could intervene, and then halted the enemy’s advance. At this juncture he was seriously wounded, but Marshal Ney was close at hand and at once took over the command. Dumerc’s cuirassiers then sealed the success of the action in one brilliant charge which caused some 2,000 Russian casualties and sent the whole Russian army staggering back to Stachov. This sharp lesson proved too much for the admiral, and he made no further attempt to renew the battle that day. The French cavalry had proved its continuing battle worthiness, and deserves to share the honors of the Berezina with the sappers. No general was ever better served by his officers and men than Napoleon at the Berezina, if we discount the apathetic stragglers.

  At midday, the focus of the drama shifted to the bridges linking the two banks of the Berezina. The Russians, after passing round the left flank of Victor’s stalwart rear guard, managed to bring some batteries into action against the crowds of refugees thronging the approaches to the bridges. A single salvo was enough to set off a repeat performance of the disgraceful scene of the previous afternoon. Panic swept through the crowd which packed itself into a solid mass 200 yards deep and three quarters of a mile wide, as every individual began to fight and claw his way through the press toward the bridges. Those still in carriages lashed their horses forward, heedless of the human bodies they crushed beneath the flailing hooves and wheels. Thousands were pushed off the bridges into the frozen waters to certain but comparatively merciful deaths. Worse was to follow. “In the midst of this horrible disorder,” records de Ségur, “the artillery bridge burst and broke down. The column, entangled in this narrow passage, in vain attempted to turn back. The crowds of men who came behind, unaware of the calamity, and not hearing the cries of those before them, pushed them on and threw them into the gulf, into which they were precipitated in their turn.”26 It was a scene worthy of the nether regions of Dante’s Inferno. There is no need to enlarge on the horrors witnessed in the succeeding hours as the desperate mob turned to the single remaining bridge and caused havoc once again.

  However, the Russian envelopment of Victor’s left proved short-lived, for the Emperor ordered up a massive battery onto the right bank of the river and poured a hail of enfilading fire into the flank of the Russian masses until they fell back. During this stage of the fighting, Fournier’s cavalry earned immortal fame in another successful charge on Victor’s left. And so when evening came on, the IXth Corps was still in position covering the bridges. At nine o’clock, the order came for Victor to withdraw his men, and once again Eblé and his sappers had to carve a road for the tired soldiers through the flotsam and jetsam blocking the entrances to the bridges. It was not until one in the morning of the 29th that the last formations finished the crossing. Once again Eblé implored the apathetic mob of noncombatants to follow Marshal Victor over, but for a second time the hapless human beings preferred to stay huddled on the further bank through the hours of darkness in a state of abject and self-induced exhaustion.

  At dawn on the 29th, the very last rear guard of the IXth Corps made its way over the bridge, and all the combatant strength of the French army was safely on the western bank. Then General Eblé, after delaying the inevitable order in the hope that some of the human flotsam could make good their escape, instructed his men to fire the bridges at nine o’clock. In a trice the bridges were blocked with a screaming, writhing, fighting mass of humanity, at last aware of their peril when it was already too late. Some unfortunates perished in the flames. Then, with a hissing crash and a shower of sparks the bridges collapsed into the Berezina, taking with them their pitiful loads. The crossing of the Berezina was over; the river was blocked with frozen corpses for weeks to come.

  Napoleon was undoubtedly in a position to claim a strategic victory. Against all the odds, what was left of his army had been snatched from seemingly final catastrophe, and the road to Vilna lay open before it. However, the cost in terms of human lives will never be known with any accuracy. Probably between 20-30,000 French combatants became casualties during the three days of the operation; worst hit in this respect were the IInd and IXth Corps, which lost more than half of their effective strength in their important roles of protecting the bridgehead area. To the number of the slain in action must be added probably as many as 30,000 noncombatants; not all these died during the crossing operation, but the large number that fell into Russian hands succumbed almost to a man of exposure and starvation during the following days. Huge quantities of booty fell into the hands of the Cossacks, but it is noteworthy that the French only abandoned 25 guns to the enemy. For their part, the Russians lost at least 10,000 killed over the same period and many more wounded.

  Napoleon, however, had at least averted a repetition of the disaster of the Caudine Forks.* As we have seen this success was very largely due to the inaction of his opponents and the devoted service of three of his subordinates. Eblé, the selfless bridge-builder; Oudinot, the selector of the crossing place and defender of the southern flank; and Victor, commander of the intrepid rear guard.

  Weighty criticisms can be launched at the commanders on both sides regarding their conduct of affairs. For Napoleon’s part, he can be censured for allowing his pontoon train to be burned at Orsha (even if this was a mistake) and yet not ensuring that a greater part of the private baggage was destroyed. He is also guilty of wasting several critical days in mid-November waiting for subordinates to send back reports on the practicability of bridging the Berezina at various points; in the old days Napoleon would have gone forward to see for himself. Above all, he can be blamed for not taking any real steps to safeguard his wounded and the other noncombatants, and for his failure to supervise personally the crossing operation once the bridges were complete. On the credit side, however, there is no denying that his plan for the overall operation provided a masterly display of his grasp of grand tactics; the vital considerations of surprise, rapid movement and offensive action were skilfully blended. Indeed, for a limited period there was a return of the spark and energy of former years.

  As for the Russians, it is hard to comprehend Kutusov’s lack of drive before November 26 in terms of anything else than a deliberate desire to allow Napoleon to escape over the Berezina. His confusing orders to his colleagues, especially Tshitshagov, were largely responsible for the loss of an apparently inevitable and complete success. As Clausewitz wrote soon after the Berezina, “Bonaparte had escaped with about 40,000 men, as if some higher power had decreed not to destroy him utterly on this occasion. He had been forced into a situation in which it appeared he must be lost. Had Admiral Tshitshagov only held onto his position at Sembin … with 10,000 men he could not have been forced out of it, and it was then too late for the French to retreat by any other road. In twenty-four hours, hunger, a more potent commander than even Napoleon, would have exercised its sway, and the French army must have been lost.”27 If any one Russian mistake can be singled out for special comment, it is their failure to hold or destroy the crucial causeway leading away from the
Berezina toward Zembin. Such an oversight can only be described as gross negligence on the part of the responsible Russian commander. And the fact that the success or failure of the entire French operation depended on this single causeway demonstrates what a gamble Napoleon was undertaking.

  “This is how to pass over a bridge under the enemy’s nose (lit. beard).”

  In 321

  B.C. a Roman army was trapped in a defile by an Etruscan force and every man was compelled to surrender and pass under a yoke made of three spears lashed together to symbolize their disgrace.

  74

  BACK TO THE ELBE

  The history of the last stages of the Russian Campaign can be rapidly outlined. Little of transcendent military importance transpired, and the story is one of a rapid dwindling away of the survivors of the Berezina under the combined corrosive pressure of Russian Cossacks and Russian winter. Even before the outcome of the fighting on the 28th, Davout and Eugene were on their way westward through Zembin, followed before dawn the next day by the Emperor and the Guard, then Victor and Ney. Simultaneously, General Wrede abandoned Gloubokoie and fell back toward Dokchitsi with the intention of making a rendezvous with the Emperor to the east of Vilna, but his force of 11,000 men shrank almost as rapidly as the main body. On the 30th, the IXth Corps, to cite one example, was down to 60 cavalry and 3,300 infantry. At first the progress of the retreat was desperately slow, but force of events caused the survivors to hasten their steps. For, on the 29th, a Russian cavalry force under General Lanskoi succeeded in outdistancing the French column and attacked the town of Plechenitzi on their route. The Russians almost captured the wounded Marshal Oudinot, slowly making his way toward France; but that intrepid warrior, despite his wound, organized fifteen comrades and defended his house to such good effect that the enemy drew back from the town. Nevertheless, this incident served as a warning of what might befall the main army if it dallied overlong on the road.

  The next four days saw incessant rear guard actions as General Chaplitz’s Corps of Tshitshagov’s army moved up in pursuit while Wittgenstein’s forces moved parallel to Napoleon’s line of march. On December 2, there were apparently only 13,000 French troops still around the colors, and the army’s disorganization became complete as the weather steadily worsened. On December 3, headquarters reached Molodetchna, while at the rear of the column Marshal Victor very unwillingly relieved Ney of the arduous duties of rear guard commander. Several days earlier Ney’s original command had shrunk to a mere 100 men, and the Duke of Elchingen decided to send the IIIrd Corps’ carefully preserved eagles to the comparative safety of Imperial Headquarters.

  At Molodetchna Napoleon dictated what were to prove practically his last orders of the campaign. He also composed the lengthy “29th Bulletin of the Grand Army” and sent it off toward Paris for publication. This document was intended to break the news of the army’s disintegration and forestall any excessively alarmist private letters. Much of the true situation of the army was revealed, but the language was extremely guarded; as might have been expected Napoleon chose to blame the disaster on the weather, although this was a considerable distortion of the truth, as the really severe frosts were not encountered until after the Berezina, and the army had lost the greater number of its men in the weeks before the crossing. The bulletin ended with another curious sentence: “His Majesty’s health has never been better.”28 No doubt the main intention behind this declaration was to scotch any rumors to the contrary, such as had led to the notorious Malet plot the month before, but the knowledge that Napoleon’s health continued undisturbed must have offered scant consolation to the literally hundreds of thousands of widows and orphans who had suffered bereavement since June 22, 1812.

  Early in the morning of the 5th, Napoleon reached Smorgoni. Here, at seven in the evening, he held his last conference with his marshals. Murat, Eugène, Berthier, Lefebvre, Bessières, Mortier, Ney and Davout were summoned to attend. The Emperor came straight to the point. He had decided that the time had come for him to leave the army and return to Paris. The Emperor gave out that he would be accompanied back to France by only Caulaincourt, Duroc, Lobau, his valet Rustam and a Polish interpreter, together with a small escort of Neapolitan cavalry. The convoy would consist of only three vehicles, a sleeping coach and two calèches. The Emperor would be traveling incognito, posing as Caulaincourt’s first secretary. The news of his departure was to be kept secret for several days, but then an Imperial decree was to be promulgated announcing the necessary change of command—“Article One: The King of Naples is nominated lieutenant-general and will command the Grande Armée in our absence.”29—and that the Emperor was heading for Warsaw. His aides were to follow from day to day in rota, carrying the latest tidings.

  The news was not entirely unexpected by the marshalate, but its impact was nevertheless something of a shock. Berthier in particular was disconsolate that he had not been selected to accompany his master westward, but one and all agreed that Napoleon was adopting the correct course. Some commentators have tried to represent the Emperor’s decision as the very depths of infamy, on a par with his desertion of the Army of Egypt thirteen years earlier. Most contemporaries, however, and the majority of later historians agree that it was a necessary and sensible step. In the first place, his continued presence with the Grande Armée could serve no useful purpose; he had seen his men over the last serious obstacle before the Niemen, and was reasonably confident that his subordinates could supervise the last stages of the retreat. Secondly, it was obvious that his presence at Paris with the minimum of delay was imperative if new armies were to be raised and public opinion rallied after news of the disaster. “In the existing state of affairs,” he said to Caulain-court, “I can only maintain my grip on Europe from the Tuileries.”30 There was also a real danger that his continental allies might decide to abandon his cause, and even intercept his return from Poland if he continued to linger. “My return in indispensable,” he confided to General Rapp. “I must watch Austria and counter Prussia.”31 And so, at ten in the evening of December 5, the Emperor bade his farewells and entered his coach. Five days later he was in Warsaw, after narrowly avoiding a brush with an enemy partisan band; December 14 found him at Dresden, and on the evening of the 18th he arrived in Paris.

  Napoleon’s unexpected return caused a great sensation, and, as intended, did much to counter the growing atmosphere of defeatism that was spreading over the Empire’s capital. As Mile. Avrillon wrote, “The bad news received from the army set our courtiers seriously a-thinking … for, as they reasoned, the unheard-of catastrophe of the Campaign of 1812 must produce strange fruits—bringing with them the fall of the conqueror; it was therefore right that everyone should take precautions, and secure himself a port in case of a storm.” Such was the prevailing atmosphere “when, lo! of a sudden and without any preparation, at the very moment when nobody would have been astonished at hearing of the Emperor’s death, a courier arrived to announce that His Majesty had just arrived at the Tuileries. Then every face cleared, as if a great victory had been obtained. Every courtier showed more earnestness, more devotion, more enthusiasm for Napoleon than ever.”32

  If Napoleon’s decision to return to Paris was both militarily and politically justifiable, his choice of Murat to succeed him in command of the Grande Armée was less fortunate. Caulaincourt and other influential personages favored Prince Eugène, who was certainly more popular with the men than the King of Naples. The latter’s flamboyance and pride (although not his undoubted bravery) were more suited to the pursuit of a shattered foe rather than to the conduct of a painful retreat ahead of vengeful enemies. Moreover, after a shaky start, Eugene’s brilliant showing as a general during the campaign had confounded all the experts. Berthier, on the other hand, was all in favor of Murat’s nomination, and accordingly Napoleon made up his mind. It did not prove the best choice. Murat was too shattered by the preceding events and the miseries of the weather to make a good showing.

  Betwee
n Smorgoni and Vilna, 20,000 more men dropped away from the column. Really severe frosts were now being encountered; on December 5 the thermometer recorded twenty degrees below zero; on the 8th, twenty-six. Between the 8th and the 10th the survivors straggled into Vilna, to find almost unheard of plenty; no less than four million rations of biscuit, almost as many of meat, and clothing and weapons in profusion awaited them. But this oasis proved of little avail; the ragged scarecrows rioted at the gates of the town, and many were crushed to death in the appalling press. Hundreds more swilled themselves into a state of coma on brandy and spirits, and then died of exposure in the frozen streets. And although Murat had been instructed by Napoleon to give his men at least eight days’ rest in the city, the King of Naples was so disturbed by the proximity of Cossack raiders that he ordered the evacuation of Vilna on the night of the 9th, abandoning the 20,000 wounded in the hospitals (the victims of the earlier stages of the campaign) to their fate.

  The march crawled forward; on the 10th much of the remaining transport, many guns and even the army’s treasury containing ten million francs were abandoned on the icy slopes of the hill of Ponarskaia which the ravaged horses could not negotiate. By this date, only 7,000 troops remained under arms. Kovno, reached on the IIth, was deemed indefensible, and the 20,000 scarecrows who remained on their feet hurried through, seizing what little food they could carry with them from the well-stocked but virtually useless depots. Even the Guard was now down to 1,600 effectives; Ney controlled perhaps 2,000 men drawn from many units; the other formations had completely disappeared. Forty-two cannon were found at Kovno, but they too proved useless—there were no horses to draw them; every day gun after gun fell into the hands of the pursuing Russians. Thus at last the pathetic remnant of the former Grande Armée passed out of Russia, the last man over the bridge fittingly being the indomitable Marshal Ney, and limped away down the left bank of the Niemen towards Königsberg, which was reached later in December. For their part, the Russians halted at the political frontier; their total force had also shrunk to a mere 40,000 capable of operations by this time.