Napoleon and his court

by C. S. Forester

The peace which followed Hohenlinden gave Napoleon a chance to train an army as he wished, and the Austerlitz campaign found him at the head of an army of two hundred thousand men, half of them veterans, all of them of very considerable length of service, who were to a man inspired with the utmost enthusiasm for him and for the Empire. Yet at Austerlitz the line was abandoned almost entirely in favour of the column; the columns showed evident signs of disintegration even when victorious. It was already a little obvious that the Imperial armies were only adapted to a furious offensive effort, and that failure of this effort meant unlimited catastrophe. At Jena the Prussians were too heavily outnumbered to offer any serious resistance, but at Eylau the French army was only saved from destruction after the failure of their first offensive by the fact that Napoleon held ready at hand eighteen thousand cavalry, and by the constitutional sluggishness of the Russian army.

Friedland offered the last example of a really heroic defensive by an Imperial force, but the soul of that defensive was Lannes. Few other men could have held a French army corps together against superior forces as did Lannes on that fateful anniversary of Marengo. After Friedland we find the French army growing progressively poorer and more unreliable. We read of panics at Wagram, of the introduction of regimental artillery to give the infantry confidence, of shameless skulking on the field of battle and of heavy desertion while on the march. Discipline was fading at the same time as devotion to the Emperor was losing some of its force. In the Russian campaign of 1812 the Grand Army had barely crossed the frontier before it began to go to pieces. Napoleon could not trust his men to manœuvre at Borodino, and in consequence he had to rely on frontal attacks made against elaborate fieldworks defended by the most stubborn of all Continental infantry. At the crisis of the battle he refused to fling the Imperial Guard into the struggle; some thought it was because he was too far from his base to risk his best reserve; some suspected Bessières of having implored him not to waste his best troops; but perhaps the reason was a more logical one. Had the Guard been sent forward and been beaten back, the whole army would have fallen back routed; at Waterloo Napoleon took the risk and lost; at Borodino he refused to take it and was satisfied with an indecisive gain.

The Grand Army perished in Russia, but in three months Napoleon raised, trained and equipped three hundred thousand more men and was for a time once more successful. Curiously enough, this raw infantry of 1813 was to all intents and purposes of greater military value than the two or three year trained infantry of 1812. The army of 1812 possessed the little knowledge proverbially dangerous, and would not willingly expose itself to sacrifice, but the novices of 1813 knew nothing of war, and suffered losses and privations which would have roused veterans to mutiny. At Lützen Ney’s corps of half-grown boys endured for hours the attack of the whole Allied force, and fought like demons in the shelter of the villages of Gorschen and Kaya. At Bautzen the French attacked with a dash and fury reminiscent of Elchingen or Saalfeld. Before Dresden they accomplished a march which easily bears comparison with anything achieved in 1796. But the decline of their fame had already begun. At the Katzbach, at Gross Beeren, at Dennewitz, the conscripts fled in panic. They had discovered by this time that a battle generally implies the sacrifice of one portion of the army while the rest gains the victory, and they were one and all determined not to be the sacrifice. At Leipzig what was left of the army of 1813 lost the greater part of its numbers—a new lesson to the effect that it is easier to surrender than to fight had been learned. Napoleon’s last victorious phase, in the campaign of France in 1814, coincides with his use of a fresh army of raw conscripts, and his surrender took place when the men of the ranks had once more learnt the lessons of their predecessors.

Waterloo, the last battle of the Empire, epitomizes all these observations. The French attacked with dash, but a single reverse was sufficient to weaken the infantry so much that no support was forthcoming for the later cavalry attacks. A powerful counter-attack by the enemy brought about, not merely retreat, but unspeakable panic. Practically every battalion which had been in action broke and fled. The Guard, which had moved forward so majestically, dispersed like the merest conscripts. The only troops which held together were the reserve battalions of the Old Guard, which had not yet been engaged, and for a time Lobau’s corps at Planchenoit. The Prussians after Jena were not so hopelessly disorganized as were the French after Waterloo.

Napoleon undoubtedly appreciated this weakness of his army, and this explains the reckless manner in which he sought battle at all costs, and the risks he cheerfully ran in his endeavour to get to grips with his enemy. His headlong, energetic strategy gave him the initiative, and this initiative he retained on the field of battle. Jena, Eylau, Eckmühl, Aspern, Wagram, Borodino, were all examples of a fierce tactical offensive. On the two principal occasions, at Austerlitz and Friedland, when he confined some part of his force to a dogged defensive, he saw that the generals in command were men of wide personal influence, and that the troops they led were the best available. Davout and Lannes were certainly successful. At Lützen Ney’s necessarily defensive rôle was not fully foreseen, but he was able to hold on, partly through the enthusiasm of his young men, partly through the advantage they possessed in holding the villages, and partly through Wittgenstein’s bungling of the attack.

At no period in its development will Napoleon’s army bear comparison with, say, the army of Cromwell, or the original force of Gustavus Adolphus, or with the army of the Third Republic. It incidentally follows that Napoleon’s military achievements should be rated even higher than they usually are, seeing that the immense successes he gained were gained with inferior troops.

But if the rank and file were of this doubtful quality, it was far otherwise with the officers, and the statement of Napoleon’s with which this chapter opens is therefore subject to doubt. Napoleon’s method of making war support war exposed his armies, as he candidly admitted, to a loss of one-half of their numbers every year, and since this loss fell far more heavily on the privates than on the officers, it followed that a very widely experienced corps of officers was built up. It was quite usual for men of good birth to serve a few months in the ranks before taking commissions; Marbot and Bugeaud are good examples of this among the younger men. Once they had gained their lieutenancy anything might happen. They might in ten years be dukes and generals, or they might still be lieutenants. The open system of promotion was stimulating, certainly, but it was undoubtedly unfair at times. Curély, who served from 1800 to 1814, and was subsequently admitted to be the best light cavalry officer in the French service, only attained his colonelcy in his last campaign. The men who received the most rapid promotion were those who had attracted Napoleon’s notice in 1796 or in the Egyptian campaign. Some of these choices were highly successful, as witness the career of Davout, but others were positively harmful. Marmont was a failure, Junot was a failure, Murat was a failure, while men of undoubted talent served in twenty campaigns without receiving promotion. Kellermann the younger fought at Waterloo with the same military rank as he had held at Marengo. Suchet, who was one of the most successful generals of division in 1799, remained a general of division until 1811. If this was the case with the higher ranks, it must have been nearly as bad with the lower ranks. When the rush of promotion of the Revolutionary era ended, advancement became very slow indeed. A man who was a captain at the battle of the Pyramids might well consider himself fortunate if he commanded a battalion at Ligny. Occasionally, however, the divisional generals were given their chance. The vast expansion of the Imperial Army for the Russian campaign increased the commands of some of the Marshals to eighty or a hundred thousand men, and generals of division similarly found themselves at the head of twenty or thirty thousand. Many of them displayed talents of a very high order. St. Cyr won the battle of Polotsk, for which he received his bâton. The most remarkable example occurred at Salamanca. Here Wellington had flung himself suddenly on the over-extended Army of Portugal, had shattered one wing, and had beaten back the remainder in dire confusion; Marmont, the commander-in-chief, was badly wounded. Bonnet had hardly succeeded to the command when he was killed. Several other generals of division were struck down. The man who took over command of the fleeing mob was already wounded. He was practically unknown; he was leading a beaten army in wild retreat from the finest troops in the world. And yet he rallied that beaten army; in the course of a few hours he had them once more in hand. He faced about time and again as he toiled across the wasted Castilian plains; in a dozen fierce rearguard actions he taught the exultant English that some Frenchmen, as well as being more than men in victory, were not less than women in defeat, and he showed Wellington that every French general was not a Marmont. Every morning found his army posted in some strong position; all day long the English marched by wretched roads and over thirsty plains to turn the flanks; every evening as the movement was nearing completion the French fell back to some new position where the English had to resume the whole weary business next day. The French survived the severest defeat they had yet received in the Peninsula at English hands with astonishingly little loss; a few weeks later they had so far recovered as to thrust fiercely forward once more, and aid in driving Wellington from Madrid. The man who was responsible for this wonderful achievement deserved reward. Bessières and Marmont had been given bâtons for much less. A title, a marshalate, a dotation of a million francs would not have seemed too much for saving for France a kingdom, an army of forty thousand men, and dependent forces numbering a quarter of a million. But Clausel was not made Marshal, nor Duke of Burgos. Instead he was recalled, and an inferior general, Souham, sent in his place. Napoleon had a prejudice against “retreating generals” dating from the days of Moreau. Clausel took the affront philosophically, and fought on for his Emperor. When it was too late, his worth was recognized, and during the Hundred Days he was given the independent command of the Pyrenees. After Waterloo he fled from France with a price on his head. Clausel went unrewarded; Murat was over-rewarded. Their lines of conduct differed greatly.

The men who were never granted the coveted rank of Marshal, but who did each as much for France as any one of half the Marshals, are in number legion. Their very names would fill a page. Kellermann the younger has already been mentioned. At Marengo his desperate charge at the head of the heavy cavalry saved the day, and “set the crown of France on Napoleon’s head.” But Napoleon found it far safer and far cheaper to praise a dead man, and he awarded the chief credit to the slain Desaix. D’Hautpoult died at the head of his Cuirassiers at Eylau, charging one army to save another. St. Hilaire, the finest of them all, died miserably at Essling, with the Empire reeling round him. Lasalle, the pride of the light cavalry, the man who captured Stettin with a few score Hussars, fell at the head of his men in the pursuit after Wagram. Montbrun, another Cuirassier, was killed in the great redoubt at Borodino.

Their names are carved upon the Arc de Triomphe, and the bourgeois peer at them with self-satisfaction. They fell in a far less worthy cause than did the myriad Frenchmen who died by poison gas and shrapnel in the trenches a few years ago. To us now it seems to be nearly blasphemy to think in the same moment of the Moskowa and the Marne, or to speak in the same breath of the sieges of Verdun and of Hamburg. The Englishman turns lightly from the great names on the Arc de Triomphe, and thinks with proud regret of the simple inscription on an empty tomb in Whitehall. And yet these men were the wonders of their time. They did their duty; more cannot be said of any man, and much less of most. They gave their lives with a smile for a country which they adored. Danger was as usual to them as was the air they breathed. They gave their blood in streams; they marched with their men into every Continental capital. Their cowed enemies regarded them timidly, as though they were beings from another world. Their continued success and their overwhelming victories might well have led them to believe themselves superhuman. And when Waterloo was fought and lost they went back to their beloved France—such of them as survived—and nursed their wounds on pensions of thirty pounds a year.

There was one general of division who attained as near as might be to a marshalate without quite achieving this last step. He was made a duke and he gained a vast fortune. This man was Junot. Junot, indeed, is often stated to have received his bâton, but he never did, although he was as much a favourite of Napoleon’s at one time as was Marmont. It was Junot who at Toulon was writing a letter at Bonaparte’s dictation, when a cannon shot plunged near-by and scattered earth over them. “We need no sand to dry the ink now,” laughed Junot, and from that day his future was made. He married Mademoiselle Laurette Permon, whom Napoleon had once courted, and whose memoirs are one of the most interesting books of the period. Junot himself served as Bonaparte’s aide-de-camp all over Europe and in Egypt as well. He received promotion steadily, and was a general of division in a very brief while. With that rank, however, he was forced to be content, for Napoleon realized his shortcomings, while a wound in the head which he early received unbalanced him a little mentally. The one outstanding feature of his character was his passionate devotion to Napoleon. Napoleon was his God, and Junot served him with a faithfulness almost unexampled. Adventures came his way with a frequency characteristic of the period. He fell into English hands and was exchanged; he went as ambassador to Portugal and made a large fortune; he was appointed Governor of Paris, and withstood Caroline Bonaparte’s blandishments when she tried to induce him to subvert the Government. Half dead with wounds, he travelled across Europe in November, 1805, and arrived at Austerlitz on the very morning of the battle. He was again wounded heading a charge that day. In 1807 Napoleon gave him a command which he hoped would bring him fame, and a marshalate was promised in the event of success. Junot was to lead the army of Portugal from France to Lisbon; he was to capture the Portuguese royal family and the English shipping in the harbour; he was to tear down the Portuguese Government and to rule the country himself in the name of the Emperor. Junot set out with a mixed French and Spanish force numbering nearly forty thousand men. At every stage he received frantic orders from Paris demanding greater speed from him and his men. Junot did what he could. The whole valley of the Tagus was littered with the guns, dead horses and exhausted men whom he had left behind. His army was dispersed into fragments, and it was only with four hundred men at his back that Junot burst into Lisbon. The English shipping and the Portuguese royal family had fled the day before.