The Two Great Retreats of History

by George Grote; comte de Philippe-Paul Ségur

Twice, however, on the 22d and 28th of September, letters from Murat had wellnigh drawn him from this fatal abode. They announced a battle; and twice the orders for departure were written, and then burned. It seemed as though the war was finished for the emperor, and that he was only waiting for an answer from St. Petersburg. He nourished his hopes with the recollections of Tilsit and Erfurt.[155] Was it possible that at Moscow he should have less ascendancy over Alexander? Then, as is common with men who have long been the favorites of fortune, what he ardently wished he confidently expected.

His genius possessed, besides, the extraordinary faculty of being able to throw aside the most important occupation whenever he pleased, either for the sake of variety or for rest; for in him the power of will surpassed that of imagination. In this respect he reigned over himself no less despotically than he did over others.

Thus Paris diverted his attention from Petersburg. His accumulating affairs and the couriers, which in the first days succeeded each other without intermission, served to engage him. But the rapidity with which he transacted business soon left him again with nothing to do. His expresses,[156] which at first came from France in a fortnight, now ceased to arrive. A few military posts, placed in four towns reduced to ashes, and in wooden houses rudely palisaded, were wholly insufficient to guard a road of nearly two hundred and eighty miles; for we had been able to fix only these few steps, and at so great a distance apart, on so long a ladder. This too lengthened line of operation was consequently broken at every point where it was touched by the enemy: a few peasants, or a handful of Cossacks, were quite sufficient for the purpose.

Still no answer was received from Alexander. The uneasiness of Napoleon increased, while his means of diverting his attention from it diminished. The activity of his genius, accustomed to the government of all Europe, had nothing with which to occupy itself but the management of one hundred thousand men; and then, the organization of his army was so perfect, that this was scarcely any occupation to him. Here everything was fixed: he held all the wires in his hand: he was surrounded by ministers who could tell him immediately, at any hour of the day, the position of each man in the morning or at night, whether with his colors, in the hospital, on leave of absence, or wherever else he might be, and that, from Moscow to Paris: to such a degree of perfection had the science of a concentrated administration been then brought, so experienced and well chosen were the officers, and so much was required by their commander.

But eleven days had already elapsed: still Alexander was silent, and still did Napoleon hope to overcome his rival by obstinacy: thus losing the time which he ought to have gained, and which might have been made so serviceable against attack.

From this period all his actions indicated to the Russians, still more strongly than at Witepsk, that their mighty foe was resolved to fix himself in the heart of their empire. Moscow, though in ashes, received a governor and municipal officers: orders also were issued to provision it for the winter: and a theatre was formed amid its ruins. The first actors of Paris, it is said, were sent for. An Italian singer strove to reproduce in the Kremlin the evening entertainments of the Tuileries. By such means Napoleon expected to dupe a government which the habit of reigning over ignorance and error had rendered an adept in all these delusions.

He was himself sensible of the inadequacy of these means, and yet September was past, and October had begun. Alexander had not deigned to reply! it was an affront! he was exasperated. On the 3d of October, after a night of restlessness and irritation, he summoned his marshals. "Come in," said he, as soon as he perceived them; "hear the new plan which I have conceived: Prince Eugene, read it." They listened. "We must burn the remains of Moscow, and march by Twer to St. Petersburg, where we shall be joined by Macdonald. Murat and Davoust will form the rear guard." The emperor, all animation, fixed his sparkling eyes on his generals, whose rigid and silent countenances expressed nothing but astonishment.

Then exalting himself in order to rouse them, "What!" said he, "and are you not inflamed by this idea? Was there ever so great a military achievement? Henceforth this conquest is the only one that is worthy of us! With what glory shall we be covered, and what will the whole world say when it learns that in three months we have conquered the two great capitals of the North!"

But Davoust, as well as Daru, objected to him "the season, the want of supplies, a sterile desert, and artificial road, that from Twer to St. Petersburg runs for a hundred leagues through morasses, and which three hundred peasants might in a single day render impassable. Why keep proceeding north? Why go to meet, to provoke, and to defy the winter? it was already too near; and what was to become of the six thousand wounded still in Moscow? Were they then to be left to the mercy of Kutusoff? That general would not fail to follow close at our heels. We should have at once to attack and to defend, thus marching to a conquest as though we were in flight."

These officers have declared that they themselves then proposed various plans: a useless trouble with a prince whose genius outstripped all other imaginations, and whom their objections would not have stopped, had he been fully determined to march on St. Petersburg. But that idea was in him only a sally of anger, an inspiration of despair, on finding himself obliged in the face of Europe to give way, to relinquish his conquest and to fall back.