Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815

by H. Morse Stephens

Without any actual declaration of war, Russia entered into negotiations with England, and Napoleon assembled a vast army on the banks of the Vistula. In May 1812 he entered Germany to take the command, and at Dresden had interviews with the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria. Of the 325,000 men with whom he crossed the river Niémen and invaded Russia only 155,000 were French; the remainder were foreign contingents. He detached to his left Marshal Macdonald, with the Prussian contingent and some Westphalians and Poles, to attack Riga and advance on St. Petersburg, with the hope of joining Bernadotte and the Swedes; he was supported on his right by the Austrian subsidiary force, and with the centre of his army he advanced in person into Lithuania. That province being occupied, Napoleon crossed the Dnieper, and on the 18th of August he took Smolensk, in spite of the efforts of a Russian army of 80,000 men to cover the city. On his extreme right the Austrian army, under Prince Schwartzenberg, was checked by the arrival of the Russian army, set free by the Peace of Bucharest. The Russian generals, Barclay de Tolly and Bagration, in the centre, steadily retreated.

Battle of Borodino. 7th Sept. 1812.

This military policy soon reduced the efficiency and numbers of the French army; for it was drawn further from its base into a barren country, in which it was harassed by peasants and guerillas, and it was necessary to leave large divisions to protect the communications. The Emperor Alexander had approved of this policy, and as the Russian army retired the people abandoned their villages, as the Portuguese had done during the invasion of Masséna in 1810. But the Russian soldiers grumbled at this politic retreat, and the Emperor Alexander resolved to strike one blow for his capital. Barclay de Tolly was replaced by Kutuzov, and the Russian army suddenly halted on the banks of the Mosková. On the 7th of September a most terrible battle was fought there, which is known as the battle of Borodino. The Russians are said to have lost 50,000 men, including General Bagration, and it is certain that the French lost more than 30,000. Nevertheless, the French loss was proportionately the most; for Napoleon was far away from any reinforcements, whereas the Russians were fighting in their fatherland. On the 14th of September the French army occupied Moscow. On the 16th, either by accident or on purpose, fire broke out in the Russian capital. It raged for three days and three nights, and more than three-fifths of the city was utterly destroyed. The Emperor Alexander then entered into negotiations with Napoleon, and, whether he intended it or not, he kept the French Emperor from moving until too late for his safety. It was not until the 15th of October that Napoleon saw that negotiating was waste of time, and started from Moscow. The winter was an early one. Snow fell heavily. When Smolensk was reached, it was found that all the provisions stored there had been destroyed. The retreating army, now in a state of disorganisation, was hunted through the country, not only by the Russian soldiers, but by the peasantry returning to their homes. Marshal Ney covered the retreat, and won on this occasion his title of ‘the bravest of the brave.’ Napoleon, on being informed that a conspiracy against him, headed by General Malet, had been discovered in Paris, left the retreating army early in December. After his departure the cold increased. The retreat became a rout; Murat, who succeeded to the command, could not keep the army together; and but very few of the 155,000 Frenchmen who had invaded Russia recrossed the river Niémen.

Campaign in the Peninsula. 1812.

Battle of Salamanca. 22d July 1812.

While Napoleon was wrecking one army in Russia, Wellington was defeating another French army in Spain. Marmont, who had succeeded Masséna, failed to prevent the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo in January, or that of Badajoz in April, and after a long course of intricate manœuvres, gave Wellington the opportunity to attack and defeat him at the battle of Salamanca, July 22, 1812. The victory was complete. Joseph Bonaparte evacuated Madrid, and withdrawing all his troops from Andalusia fell back behind the Ebro. Wellington occupied Madrid on August 12, and then with his main army advanced on Burgos. Burgos, however, resisted all his assaults. The Anglo-Portuguese army had to retire once more into Portugal, and Joseph Bonaparte for the last time returned to his capital. While this campaign was being fought Lord William Bentinck, who commanded the English garrison in Sicily, was requested to send troops to the eastern coast of Spain to effect a diversion. But the operations were badly combined; Sir John Murray was driven from before Tarragona; and at a subsequent date Lord William Bentinck himself failed to make an impression on Suchet’s army at Alicante. The victory of Salamanca was a proof of the insecure foundation on which the throne of Joseph Bonaparte rested. Owing to it alone he had to leave Madrid, and evacuate the whole of southern Spain; the military policy of the English ministers was justified; and though Salamanca cannot be compared with the disasters in Russia, it yet had its effect in showing the increasing weakness of the French military power.

Prussia declares war. 16th March 1813.

The retreat of the French and their passage of the Niémen enabled Prussia to throw off the mask of alliance with France. The Prussian contingent, amounting to 18,000 men, had been placed under the command of Marshal Macdonald, and was occupied in the siege of Riga. Napoleon had hoped that this detached army upon his left would be joined by Bernadotte at the head of the Swedes. But Bernadotte, as has been seen, had forgotten his French nationality in accepting the position of heir to the Swedish throne. His first idea was to make himself popular in Sweden by securing the conquest of Norway to take the place of Finland, and behind it lay the hope of possibly succeeding Napoleon himself. In his original communications with the Emperor Alexander, he had demanded the assistance of a Russian army for the conquest of Norway as the price of his adhesion to the coalition against Napoleon. When Alexander would not make a definite promise, Bernadotte applied to his former sovereign in June 1812, and promised to assist in the French invasion of Russia, if Napoleon would guarantee to him the possession of Norway. But the French Emperor would make no compact with his former marshal, and hoped that he would lend his assistance to the occupation of St. Petersburg in return for vague promises. Bernadotte therefore remained neutral, and Macdonald, without the expected help from Sweden, could get no further than Riga. The retreat of the main French army from Moscow made it necessary for Macdonald likewise to fall back, and in the course of his retreat the Prussian contingent, under the command of General York, deserted, and that general signed the Convention of Tauroggen, on 30th December 1812, by which he abandoned France without definitely declaring himself upon the side of Russia. Macdonald, with his Westphalians and Poles, managed to leave Russia in safety, and to join the remnants of the main army. But the desertion of York was a symptom of what was to follow. Stein summoned the Estates of East Prussia at Königsberg; the Prussians rose en masse, and the French army, pursued by the Russian troops and these new enemies, retreated behind the Vistula.

Frederick William of Prussia at last threw off the mask, and, on the 7th of February 1813, he called out the reserve which had been formed by the skilful military policy of Scharnhorst, and ordered the Landwehr and the Landsturm to join the colours; on 27th February he signed the Treaty of Kalisch with Russia, promising alliance; on 16th March he declared war against France; and he joined the headquarters of his friend Alexander, and lived in his company until the termination of the war. Prussian enthusiasm grew to its height; the reserves fell in from every city and district, and the broken French army, which was now left under the command of Eugène de Beauharnais, retreated first behind the Oder and then behind the Elbe, leaving powerful garrisons in Dantzic, Stettin, and the chief Prussian fortresses. The Russians of the army of the right pursued vigorously, and after driving the French from Berlin, the Russian generals, Chernishev and Tetterborn, took Hamburg. The resurrection of Prussia and the rapid retreat of the French caused Bernadotte to declare himself openly on the side of the allies, and he crossed the Baltic and entered Germany at the head of a Swedish army of 12,000 men. The King of Prussia’s declaration of war with France was received with enthusiasm. Two separate Prussian armies were formed, the first under Bülow to act with the Swedes, and the Russian army of the right, and to defend Berlin, the other under Blücher in Silesia to co-operate with the second invading army of the left from Russia. The command in chief of this latter army was, after the death of Kutuzov in May, conferred on Barclay de Tolly, while Wittgenstein commanded the Russian contingent.

First Campaign of 1813.