The Camp-fires of Napoleon / Comprising The Most Brilliant Achievemnents of the Emperor and His Marshals

by Henry C. Watson

Such were the last days of the grand army: its last nights were still more frightful. Those whom they surprised marching together, far from every habitation, halted on the borders of the woods: there they lighted their fires, before which they remained the whole night, erect and motionless, like spectres. They seemed as if they could not possibly have enough of the heat; they kept so close to it as to burn their clothes, as well as the frozen parts of their body, which the fire decomposed. The most dreadful pain then compelled them to stretch themselves on the ground, and the next day they attempted in vain to rise.

In the meantime, such as the winter had almost wholly spared, and who still retained some portion of courage, prepared their melancholy meal. It had consisted, ever since they left Smolensk, of some slices of horseflesh broiled, and a little rye meal made into a sort of gruel with snow water, or kneaded into paste, which they seasoned, for want of salt, with the powder of their cartridges.

The sight of these fires was constantly attracting fresh spectres, who were driven back by the first comers. Many of them, destitute of the means and the strength necessary to cut down the lofty fir trees, made vain attempts to set fire to them as they were standing; but death speedily surprised them, and they might be seen in every sort of attitude, stiff and lifeless about their trunks.

Under the vast pent-houses erected by the sides of the high road in some parts of the way, scenes of still greater horror were witnessed. Officers and soldiers all rushed precipitately into them, and crowded together in heaps. There, like so many cattle, they pressed upon each other around the fires, and as the living could not remove the dead from the circle, they laid themselves down upon them, there to expire in their turn, and serve as a bed of death to some fresh victims. In a short time additional crowds of stragglers presented themselves, and, being unable to penetrate into these asylums of suffering, they completely besieged them.

It frequently happened that they demolished their walls, which were formed of dry wood, in order to feed their fires; at other times, repulsed and disheartened, they were contented to use them as shelters to their bivouacs, the flames of which very soon communicated to the buildings, and the soldiers who were within them, already half dead with the cold, perished in the conflagration.

At Youpranoui, the same village where the Emperor only missed by an hour being taken by the Russian partisan Seslawin, the soldiers burned the houses as they stood, merely to warm themselves for a few minutes. The light of these fires attracted some of those miserable wretches, whom the excessive severity of the cold and their sufferings had rendered delirious; they ran to them like madmen, they threw themselves into these furnaces, where they perished in horrible convulsions. Their famished companions looked on unmoved; and there were some who drew out these bodies, blackened and broiled by the flames, and, shocking to relate, they ventured to pollute their mouths with this dreadful food!

This was the same army which had been formed from the most civilized nation of Europe; that army, formerly so brilliant, which was victorious over men to its last moment, and whose name still reigned in so many conquered capitals. Its strongest and bravest warriors, who had recently been proudly traversing so many scenes of their victories, had lost their noble bearing; covered with rags, their feet naked and torn, and supporting themselves with branches of fir, they dragged themselves painfully along; and the strength and perseverance which they had hitherto put forth in order to conquer, they now made use of only to flee.

In this state of physical and moral distress, the remnant of the grand army reached the city of Wilna, the Mecca of their hopes. There food and shelter were obtained; but the Russians soon came up and told, in the thunder of their artillery, that Wilna was not a place of rest for the French. They were driven from the town, and Ney, with a handful of men, could scarcely protect their flight. Who can ever do sufficient honor to the lion-hearted marshal? This was the order of retreat which he adopted:

Every day, at five o’clock in the evening, he took his position, stopped the Russians, allowed his soldiers to eat and take some rest, and resumed his march at ten o’clock. During the whole of the night, he pushed the mass of the stragglers before him, by dint of cries, of entreaties, and of blows. At daybreak, which was about seven o’clock, he halted, again took position, and rested under arms and on guard until ten o’clock; the enemy then usually made his appearance, and he was compelled to fight until the evening, gaining as much ground in the rear as possible. This depended at first on the general order of march, and at a later period upon circumstances.

For a long time this rear guard did not consist of more than two thousand, then of one thousand, afterward of about five hundred, and finally it was reduced to sixty men; and yet Berthier, either designedly, or from mere routine, made no change in his instructions. These were always addressed to the commander of a corps of thirty-five thousand men; in them he coolly detailed all the different positions which were to be taken up and guarded until the next day, by divisions and regiments which no longer existed. And every night, when pressed by Ney’s urgent warnings, he was obliged to go and awake the King of Naples, and compel him to resume his march, he testified the same astonishment.