The nearest of the Russian armies, concentrated to the south-west of Moscow, struck the first blow on October 18 at daybreak, by surprising Murat’s cavalry camp near Vinkovo. The results to the French were disastrous. Two thousand of Murat’s men were killed and as many more were taken prisoners. Between thirty and forty guns were lost, and Murat’s personal camp-baggage train, which included “his silver canteens and cooking utensils, in which cats’ and horse flesh were found prepared for food”—a discovery that opened the eyes of the Russians to the precarious position of affairs in Napoleon’s army. Murat himself, according to one story, “rode off on the first alarm in his shirt.” He only got away, according to another, by cutting his way through the Russians sword in hand, at the head of his personal escort of carabineers. Two Eagles were spoils of the surprise; the first to fall into Russian hands in the war. They were lost in the general scrimmage, their bearers being sabred at the outset of the Russian onslaught. The Eagles were at once sent off to St. Petersburg to be presented to the Czar Alexander.
On the other hand nine Eagles were saved, their escorts fighting their way successfully through the Russians.
Many stories are recorded in memoirs of survivors of the Grand Army of heroic endeavours made repeatedly by officers and men to save their Eagles from the enemy amid the disasters and horrors of the retreat. Their devotion and self-sacrifice had their reward in the preservation of seven Eagles in every ten.
Two Eagles were lost fourteen days after leaving Moscow, in the disastrous battle at Wiasma on November 2, halfway on the road back to Smolensk, where the advanced columns of the pursuing Russians attacked and all but cut the retreating French army in two. The rearguard of the Grand Army, Marshal Davout’s corps, with the Italian corps of the Viceroy Eugène Beauharnais, was overpowered and driven in and broken up; crushed under the overpowering artillery fire of the Russians. They left behind 6,000 dead, 2,000 prisoners, and 27 guns. Two Eagles were taken, their regiments being virtually annihilated, but twenty-one were saved. They were safeguarded through the rout by groups of brave-hearted officers and men, who beat off the rushes made at them by the Russian cavalry and the Cossacks. They fought their way through until they met Ney’s troops, who had heard the firing and turned back, arriving in time to stem and check the Russian pursuit and enable what was left of the two shattered army corps to rally under their protection.
“WE HAVE DONE OUR DUTY!”
One infantry regiment at Wiasma perished on the battlefield to a man, but saved its Eagle. It was the rearmost of all, and was isolated and surrounded beyond reach of help. In vain its men formed square and tried to fight their way after the rest through the surging masses of the Russians. They made their way for a time until the enemy brought up artillery. A Russian battery galloped up, unlimbered close to them, and opened fire with murderous effect. The Frenchmen tried desperately to charge the guns, but were beaten back by a rush of cavalry. At last, in despair, they formed square and faced the cruel slaughter that the guns made in their ranks, in the hope that help might reach them. Terms were offered them and refused. They would not surrender, and fought on till dusk, when their ammunition gave out. The Russians were closing round for a final decisive charge on the small handful of survivors, when the wounded colonel, seeing all was over, made the attempt that saved the Eagle. The scanty remnant of what had that morning been a regiment of 3,000 men formed round in a ring, facing towards the enemy with bayonets levelled. The Eagle-staff was broken up and the fragments thrust under the ground. With flint and steel a match was lighted and the silken tricolor consumed. The Eagle was then tied up in a havresac and entrusted to an old soldier who was known to be a good rider. The colonel, giving up his own charger to the man, bade him watch his chance and, as the enemy came on in the dark, dash through them and ride his hardest. “Carry the Eagle to his Majesty,” were the colonel’s words. “Deliver it to him, and tell him that we have done our duty!” The man rode off. He was able to get through the nearest Russians under cover of the darkness, having to fight his way before he got clear, and receiving several wounds. Then his horse fell dead from its injuries. On foot he stumbled on, and before midnight reached, not Napoleon, but Marshal Ney, to whom he gave up his precious charge. No officer or man of the others of the luckless regiment was ever heard of in France again. No prisoners from it ever returned—only the Eagle survived.
Three days after Wiasma the Russian winter suddenly set in on the doomed host. It brought about at once the disintegration and disorganisation of the Grand Army. Already, demoralised by their privation, hundreds of men had fallen out of the ranks, flinging away their muskets and knapsacks, and straggling along in disorderly groups. A third practically of the Army ceased to exist as a fighting force within the first fortnight of the retreat, before the first snows fell. The others, though, still kept to their duty. Marching in the ranks day after day, they strove their hardest to beat back the incessant attacks of the swarms of Cossacks, hovering round on the watch to raid the baggage-convoys at every block or stoppage on the road. With the coming of the snow the doom of the Grand Army was sealed. It was impossible to maintain discipline with the thermometer at twenty degrees below zero. Men dropped dead from cold by the score every half-mile.
On November 6 the sun disappeared; a grey fog enshrouded everything; the frost set in; and a bitter north wind in howling gusts swept over the face of the land; with it came down the snow, falling hour after hour by day and night without ceasing.
“From that day the Army lost its courage and its military instinct. The soldier no longer obeyed his officer. The officer separated himself from his general. The disbanded regiments marched in disorder. In their frantic search for food they spread themselves over the plain, pillaging and destroying whatever fell in their way.” So a survivor wrote.
The snow came down “in large broad flakes, which at once chilled and blinded the soldiers: the marchers, however, stumbled forward, men often struggling and at last sinking in holes and ravines that were concealed from them by the new and disguised appearance of the country. Those who yet retained discipline and kept their ranks stood some chance of receiving assistance; but amid the mass of stragglers, the men’s hearts, intent only on self-preservation, became hardened and closed against every feeling of sympathy and compassion. The storm-wind lifted the snow from the earth, as well as that steadily pelting down from above, into dizzy eddies round the soldiers. Many were hurled to the ground in this manner, while the same snow furnished them with an instant grave, under which they were concealed until the next summer came, to display their ghastly remains in the open air.”