They showed "the trace of this base marked out by the Düna, the Dnieper, the Ula, and the Berezina, from Riga to Bobruisk; they said that Macdonald, Saint Cyr and De Wrede, Victor and Dombrowski were there waiting for them; there were thus, including Schwartzenberg, and even Augereau, (who protected the interval between the Elbe and the Niemen with fifty thousand men,) nearly two hundred and eighty thousand soldiers on the defensive, who, from the north to the south, supported the attack of one hundred and fifty thousand men upon the east; and from thence they argued, that this point upon Moscow, however hazardous it might appear, had been both sufficiently prepared, and was worthy of the genius of Napoleon, and that its success was possible; in fact, its failure had been entirely occasioned by errors of detail."
They then brought to mind our useless waste of lives before Smolensk, Junot's inaction at Valoutina, and they maintained, "that in spite of all these losses, Russia would have been completely conquered on the field of battle of the Moskwa, if Marshal Ney's first successes had been followed up.
"Even at the last, although the expedition had failed in a military point of view, by the indecision of that day, and politically by the burning of Moscow, the army might still have returned from it safe and sound. From the time of our entrance into that capital, had not the Russian general and the Russian winter allowed us, the one forty, and the other fifty days, to recover ourselves, and to make our retreat?"
Deploring afterwards the rash obstinacy of losing so much time at Moscow, and the fatal hesitation at Malo-Yaroslawetz, they proceeded to reckon up their losses. Since their leaving Moscow, they had lost all their baggage, five hundred cannon, thirty-one eagles, twenty-seven generals, forty thousand prisoners, sixty thousand dead: all that remained were forty thousand stragglers, unarmed, and eight thousand effective soldiers.
Last of all, when their column of attack had been destroyed, they asked, "by what fatality it had happened, that the remains of this column, when collected at its base, which had been vigorously supported, were left without knowing where to halt, or to take breath? Why could they not even concentrate themselves at Minsk and at Wilna, behind the marshes of the Berezina, and there keep back the enemy, at least for some time, take advantage of the winter and recruit themselves?
"But no, all is lost by another side, by the fault of entrusting an Austrian to guard the magazines, and cover the retreat of all these brave armies, and not placing a military leader at Wilna or Minsk, with a force sufficient either to supply the insufficiency of the Austrian army to meet the combined armies of Moldavia and Volhynia, or to prevent its betraying us."
Those who made such complaints were not unaware of the presence of the Duke of Bassano at Wilna; but notwithstanding the talents of that minister, and the great confidence the Emperor placed in him, they considered that being a stranger to the art of war, and overloaded with the cares of a great administration, and of every thing political, the direction of military affairs should not have been left to him. Such were the complaints of those, whose sufferings left them the leisure necessary for observation. That a fault had been committed, it was impossible to deny; but to say how it might have been avoided, to weigh the value of the motives which had occasioned it, in so great a crisis, and in the presence of so great a man, is more than one would venture to undertake. Who is there besides that does not know, that in these hazardous and gigantic enterprises, every thing becomes a fault, when the object of them has failed?
Although the treachery of Schwartzenberg was by no means so evident, it is certain, that, with the exception of the three French generals who were with him, the whole of the grand army considered it as beyond a doubt. They said, "that Walpole's only object at Vienna was to act as a secret agent of England; that he and Metternich composed between them the perfidious instructions which were sent to Schwartzenberg. Hence it was that ever since the 20th of September, the day when the arrival of Tchitchakof and the battle of Lutsk closed the victorious career of Schwartzenberg, that marshal had repassed the Bug, and covered Warsaw by uncovering Minsk; hence his perseverance in that false manœuvre: hence, after a feeble effort towards Bresk-litowsky on the 10th of October, his neglect to avail himself of Tchitchakof's inaction by getting between him and Minsk, and hence his losing his time in military promenades, and insignificant marches towards Briansk, Bialystok, and Volkowitz.
"He had thus allowed the admiral to take rest, and rally his sixty thousand men, to divide them into two, to leave one half with Sacken to oppose him, and to set out on the 27th of October with the other half to take possession of Minsk, of Borizof, of the magazine, of the passage of Napoleon, and of his winter quarters. Then only did Schwartzenberg put himself in the rear of this hostile movement, instead of anticipating it, as he had orders to do, leaving Regnier in the presence of Sacken, and marching so slowly, that from the very first the admiral had got five marches the start of him.
"On the 14th of November, at Volkowitz, Sacken attacked Regnier, separated him from the Austrians, and pressed him so closely, that he was obliged to call Schwartzenberg to his aid. Immediately, the latter, as if he had been expecting the summons, retrograded, leaving Minsk to its fate. It is true that he released Regnier, that he beat Sacken and destroyed half his army, pursuing him as far as the Bug; but on the 16th of November, the very day of his victory, Minsk was taken by Tchitchakof: this was a double victory for Austria. Thus all appearances were preserved; the new field-marshal satisfied the wishes of his government, which was equally the enemy of the Russians whom he had just weakened on one side, and of Napoleon, whom on the other he had betrayed to them."