PRINCE EUGÈNE
Son of the ex-Empress Josephine, Viceroy of Italy, and Commander of the 4th French Army Corps
From the picture by Scheffer at Versailles
By the beginning of June it was becoming clear that Napoleon’s attack would be delivered across the Niemen. Bagration was thereupon ordered to leave a corps, under General Tormazov, to defend Volhynia against the Austrians about Lemberg, and to march with the 7th and 8th Corps through the Pinsk Marshes to Pruzhani. This movement appears to have escaped Napoleon until the last. As the French continued to advance, inclining more and more to the left, and pushing forward in dense masses into the north-east corner of Prussia, Bagration moved on to Volkovisk, about 100 miles south-southwest of Vilna, Napoleon believing him to be still at Lutsk and Brest-Litovsk.
Thus in the early days of June all was prepared for the opening of the grand drama. The hostile armies faced each other on a front of about 170 miles, with a distance of from 100 to 200 miles separating their main masses. Considerably to the southward, the Austrians, under Prince Schwarzenberg, and the army of General Tormazov confronted each other on the Galician frontier, and would evidently fight an independent contest. On May 30th Napoleon left Dresden for the front, and with his arrival at Gumbinnen on June 17th, after a detour by Thorn, Danzig and Königsberg in order to inspect the depôts at those places, the campaign may be said to have definitely commenced.
NAPOLEON’S ARMY AND ITS GENERALS
The army with which Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 was the largest which he had yet commanded, and almost certainly the largest that had ever been gathered for the purposes of a campaign under the leadership of a single man. None the less it was too small for its task, and when, on August 23rd, Napoleon left Smolensk on the last stage of the advance on Moscow, his communications were already inadequately guarded. A greater defect was its lack of homogeneity. Even in the nominally French regiments which formed the core of the vast host there were great numbers of troops drawn from the German, Dutch, Flemish and Italian provinces of the Empire. Round this nucleus were ranged masses of allies from almost every country in southern and western Europe.
The French Imperial Army in 1812 contained 107 regiments of infantry of the line and 31 of light infantry—138 in all. According to numeration there should have been 164, but 26 had disappeared from the roll for various reasons. During 1812 several new regiments were formed, chiefly from the conscrits réfractaires—men who had endeavoured to escape the remorseless conscription, and were confined and trained in special remote camps.