Grumbling was not confined to the French army in the campaign of 1812. The Russian troops said hard things of their generals which were not always justifiable, and the patriotic sentiments of the nobles suffered somewhat by the continued retreats, which were taken as evidence of weakness. As a concession to public opinion the much maligned Barclay was superseded by Kutusov, the Russian Commander-in-chief at Austerlitz, an old man approaching seventy years of age who had but recently returned from the war which his country had been waging with Turkey. He was to have an opportunity of showing his prowess within a few days of his joining the army, which now comprised nearly 104,000 men to the 125,000 or so of Napoleon. Severe fighting occurred on the 5th September, a redoubt near the village of Shevardino being taken and retaken three times by the advance guard before the Russians finally withdrew. So great was the bloodshed that when the Emperor afterwards asked where a certain battalion was, he received the reply, “In the redoubt, sire,” every individual having lost his life in the desperate assault. Over 1000 men on either side perished in defending or storming this position.
The enemy had fallen back on Borodino, a name which will be always associated with one of the most terrible battles ever fought on European soil. As the sun rose on the 7th September Napoleon exclaimed, “It is the sun of Austerlitz!” and shortly afterwards issued the following proclamation, which aroused some of the old enthusiasm amongst his troops but failed to invoke the plaudits of all. It is short and shows that the Emperor attached more importance to the battles of Vitebsk and Smolensk than the facts warranted:
“Soldiers! The battle is at hand which you have so long desired. Henceforth the victory depends on yourselves. It has become necessary, and will give you abundance; good winter quarters, and a speedy return to your country! Conduct yourselves as you did at Austerlitz, Friedland, Vitebsk, and Smolensk. Let the remotest posterity recount your actions on this day. Let your countrymen say of you all, ‘He was in that great battle under the walls of Moscow!’”
Firing began at six o’clock, and continued for twelve anxious hours. The contestants disputed the ground with such determination, each carrying and losing positions again and again, that at times it was difficult to say which army had the advantage. According to Labaume thirty of the Emperor’s generals were wounded, including Davout and Rapp, the former by being thrown from his horse as it fell dead, the latter by a ball which struck him on the hip. General Augustus de Caulaincourt, brother of the more celebrated Armand de Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza, after performing prodigies of valour in the Russian entrenchments, where the hardest fighting was done, was killed, as was General Montbrun but a little time before, while leading a similar attack. Prince Bagration afterwards died of the injuries he received, and many other Russian generals were more or less seriously wounded.
The key of the position, the Russian entrenched battery, with its terrible heap of dead and dying, was at last captured by the French. The officer commanding it was about to throw himself on his sword rather than surrender, but was prevented in the nick of time by the victors, who took him prisoner.
As Napoleon and his staff were surveying the field after the battle his horse stepped on a wounded man, whose groans attracted the rider’s attention. “It is only a Russian,” one of his attendants said, probably to allay Napoleon’s feelings rather than from want of sympathy. “After victory,” the Emperor retorted, “there are no enemies, but only men.” He was neither callous nor did he love war for its own sake. It was the result that pleased him, the humbling of the enemy, the addition of territory to the Empire, the driving of one more nail in England’s coffin. The maimed were ever his first care after battle. His besetting sin was an abnormal, and consequently unhealthy, ambition—the vice at which he had railed so much in his early days.
Napoleon failed to use his 20,000 Guards at Borodino, why is still a matter of conjecture. Some writers maintain that it would have been foolish for him to use up his last reserves, others hold that had he flung them into the battle he might have annihilated the Russian army and saved himself the agonies which followed. The reason he gave was, “At 800 leagues from Paris one must not risk one’s last reserve.”
Mr Hereford B. George, one of our greatest authorities on the invasion of Russia in 1812, states that Borodino was a butchery which cost the contestants not less than 70,000 men in killed and wounded. “No battle of modern times,” he says in summing up, “no encounter since the days before gunpowder, when the beaten side could be cut down ad libitum by the victors and quarter was seldom given, has witnessed such awful slaughter.... Whether it can be fairly called useless may be doubted, except to the nominal conqueror. Napoleon certainly deserves that title: the enemy had been dislodged from their position, and, as it proved, left the way open to Moscow. So much he might have attained by manœuvring; more he could not attain unless the courage of his enemies gave way. Without the brave men who fell at Borodino Napoleon could not possibly attempt any further offensive movement, when his occupation of Moscow led to no overtures for peace. Without them, he was substantially inferior in force when at length the inevitable retreat began. The Russian Te Deums, chanted for the victory that Kutusoff falsely claimed, were in truth only premature.”
Holy Moscow was to be the city of abundance, its entry the herald of a happier order of things. On the 14th September, as Napoleon rode forward with his troops, its domes and minarets burst upon his view. Ségur says that the soldiers shouted “Moscow! Moscow!” with the eagerness of sailors on sighting land after a long and tedious voyage. The city looked more like a mirage than the home of a quarter of a million people, more like the deserted city of an extinct race than a hive of humanity. General Sebastiani, who led the vanguard, knew the secret, and so did Murat. The Russians had arranged a hasty armistice in order to evacuate the place, leaving behind them only the riff-raff, the wounded, the aged, and the aliens.
