At Molodechno on the 3rd, just as the cold was becoming deadly, Napoleon, who already contemplated leaving the army, issued practically his last direct orders. The remains of the Polish divisions were sent off south-west towards Warsaw, which they eventually reached in safety with such guns as they had preserved. Here Napoleon received the first posts which had reached him for several days, the others having presumably been intercepted by the Cossacks. Here also he composed and sent off the 29th Bulletin. It is so well known that little reference to it is necessary. It is, however, to be observed that it is as grossly mendacious as any of the Napoleonic series; and the Emperor’s total lack of appreciation of the often heroic conduct of his troops throws a very disagreeable light upon his character. Certainly no one, reading its paragraphs, would conclude that the campaign had been an annihilating catastrophe. Every post brought shoals of letters to Maret, enquiring about the food supplies at Vilna, furiously attacking the Poles for not supporting him, and his own agents for not having urged them to do so! One most remarkable question is as to whether Vilna and Kovno are fortified. Surely Napoleon should have given orders on this point. The fact seems to be that at first he had been over-confident of success, and later had overlooked the necessity of protecting his bases—witness the case of Minsk. On the 29th of November he had ordered the minister to clear all the diplomatic body away from Vilna, lest they should be witnesses of the awful state of the army.
On December 3rd, Victor—much against his will—relieved Ney of rear-guard duty. He was weary of the war, and desired chiefly to save the relics of his corps. The result was a quarrel between the two marshals. The survivors of the 9th Corps succeeded in holding off Chaplitz in an engagement on the 4th, but next day Victor reported that it was completely used up, and could not receive the lightest attack. He hurried on to Smorgoni with the few hundred frost-bitten men who remained to him.
Napoleon himself reached Smorgoni at 8 a.m. on the 5th. There he called to his presence Murat, Eugène, Berthier, Davout, Ney, Lefebvre, Mortier and Bessières, and announced to them his intention of proceeding forthwith to Paris. There can be no doubt that this was his wisest course of action. His presence at the capital was imperatively necessary to direct new levies, and to sustain public spirit. The army practically existed no longer, and could gain nothing by his remaining with it; finally, any longer delay might render it impossible for him to reach his own frontier across Germany.
Murat, by virtue of his rank, succeeded to a command which was merely nominal. It was no doubt wise to leave all the corps commanders with the army, since the circumstance might impose upon the Russians; but otherwise it was a measure of doubtful utility. Ney, the hardest fighter of them all, and apparently the only one who persistently held firm to his duty, was on bad terms with Davout and Victor, and Davout and Murat quarrelled whenever they met. As it was, there being hardly anything to command, their squabbles counted for less than they might otherwise have done.
Napoleon left in his carriage at 7 p.m., accompanied by Caulaincourt. Duroc and Lobau followed in a sledge; and on the box of the carriage were the Mameluke Rustan and Captain Wasowicz of the Polish Lancers of the Guard, who acted as interpreter. Believing the road to be clear, he was escorted only by a small detachment of Neapolitan cavalry—and thus the mighty conqueror stole away from the scene of his ruin, leaving the survivors of his gigantic host to the climate and the arms of Russia.
As a fact, he had a very narrow escape from capture, since Seslavin that day made a dash at Ochmiana. Loison’s division, however, or what remained of it, had reached the town just before; Seslavin was driven out, and bivouacked for the night a little way to the south, so that the Emperor arrived in safety. At Medniki, the next stage, he met Maret, who had come out to meet him. The minister informed him of the enormous magazines which had gradually collected in Vilna. Presumably, as De Chambray suggests, Maret’s returns under this heading had failed to reach the Emperor, for he expressed his great relief, and directed Maret to tell Murat to halt for eight days in the city, in order to restore the physique and morale of the army. He arrived at Vilna on the 6th, leaving again, after a brief halt, for Warsaw. There, on the 10th he had the interview with De Pradt which the latter has so graphically described. He started again in a few hours via Dresden for Paris, which he reached on the 18th.
At Vilna, indeed, there were 4,000,000 rations of biscuit and flour and 3,600,000 of meat, besides an immense quantity of grain; 27,000 spare muskets, 30,000 pairs of boots, and great stores of clothing and equipment. But little of this was destined to be of use to the unhappy victims of Napoleon’s overweening ambition. The scenes on the road between Vilna and the Berezina would pass all belief were there not trustworthy witnesses, both French and Russian, to bear testimony to them. The road and its borders were strewn with dead men and horses and abandoned guns and vehicles, often broken and half-burned, the fugitives having endeavoured to utilise them as fuel. Along this way of sorrow trailed an endless stream of human beings of both sexes, falling at every step to mingle with the corpses upon which they trampled. Those who fell were quickly stripped of their wretched rags by the passers-by—themselves doomed to the same fate before long. To dwell upon the horrors which marked every mile of the flight is useless. They may be gathered from countless works composed by eyewitnesses. The sense of humanity had been in many cases extinguished, and there are well-attested incidents of cannibalism. Langeron vouches for having seen bodies from which the flesh had been hacked. The intense cold produced insanity; men took refuge in heated ovens and were roasted to death, or sprang into the fires. To be taken prisoner brought no alleviation of the lot of the hapless fugitives. The Cossacks usually stripped them; often, too, the Russians, exasperated at the destruction of Moscow and the ravages of the invaders, gave no quarter even to those who surrendered. Besides, they could do nothing to provide for them even had they the will. Prisoners died, as before, by the roadside, stripped, famished, frozen; at Vilna they were packed into buildings where pestilence raged amid cold, filth, and lack of proper food.
On towards Vilna, to which they looked forward as a haven of rest, the wretched horde streamed. The Cossacks hung about the route, dashed at will into the huddled mass, mixed with the crowd, and killed and plundered with deadly dexterity. Around the head-quarters still moved a considerable but steadily diminishing body of fighting men, but discipline had vanished, and even the Guard marched in confusion, and paid little heed to orders. Here and there among the piteous crowd that followed were to be found groups of armed officers and men, often sick and worn out, but retaining spirit to sell their lives dearly when attacked, but these were few. Even the rear-guard was not an organised body—merely a band of desperate warriors held together, usually, by the personal influence of the one Marshal of France who returned from Russia with added renown.
On the heels of the French rear-guard marched Chaplitz’s division, attacking at every opportunity, picking up abandoned guns and vehicles mile by mile and disarming prisoners, who were then left to live or die as they might. After Chaplitz, always between a piteous double stream of “prisoners” whom it could neither care for nor guard, tramped the Army of the Danube, everyone from the Admiral downwards marching on foot to escape frost-bite, and carefully taking every precaution against it. Sometimes the road was so choked with dead that the dismounted cavalry in the advance had to clear it before the guns and trains could be got forward. Langeron says that, despite the weather, fatal cases of frost-bite were almost unknown among these veterans of the Turkish War.
It is distressing, amid the stories of the universal misery and destitution, to read of the waggon-loads of luxuries belonging to Napoleon, Murat and other generals which were taken by the Russians. There is a grim humour in learning that the uncouth captors often took perfumes for spirits and liqueurs, and ate pomade in mistake for butter!