If one draws a triangle, its base stretching along the Nieman from Tilsit to Grodno, its apex on the Elbe, he will have a rough outline of the “army of twenty nations” as it lay in June, 1812. Napoleon, some two hundred and twenty-five thousand men around him, was at Kowno, hesitating to advance, reluctant to believe that Alexander would not make peace.
When he finally moved, it was not with the precision and swiftness which had characterized his former campaigns. When he began to fight, it was against new odds. He found that his enemies had been studying the Spanish campaigns, and that they had adopted the tactics which had so nearly ruined his armies in the Peninsula: they refused to give him a general battle retreating constantly before him; they harassed his separate corps with indecisive contests; they wasted the country as they went. The people aided their soldiers as the Spaniards had done. “Tell us only the moment, and we will set fire to our buildings,” said the peasants.
MARSHAL NEY (“LE MARECHAL NEY, DUC D’ELCHINGEN, PRINCE DE LA MOSKOWA, PAIR DE FRANCE”).
Engraved by Tardieu, after Gérard.
By the 12th of August, Napoleon was at Smolensk, the key of Moscow. At a cost of twelve thousand men killed and wounded, he took the town, only to find, instead of the well-victualled shelter he hoped, a smoking ruin. The French army had suffered frightfully from sickness, from scarcity of supplies, and from useless fighting on the march from the Nieman to Smolensk. They had not had the stimulus of a great victory; they began to feel that this steady retreat of the enemy was only a fatal trap into which they were falling. Every consideration forbade them to march into Russia so late in the year, yet on they went towards Moscow, over ruined fields and through empty villages. This terrible pursuit lasted until September 7th, when the Russians, to content their soldiers, who were complaining loudly because they were not allowed to engage the French, gave battle at Borodino, the battle of the Moskova, as the French call it.
At two o’clock in the morning of this engagement, Napoleon issued one of his stirring bulletins:
“Soldiers! Here is the battle which you have so long desired! Henceforth the victory depends upon you; it is necessary for us. It will give you abundance, good winter quarters, and a speedy return to your country! Behave as you did at Austerlitz, at Friedland, at Vitebsk, at Smolensk, and the most remote posterity will quote with pride your conduct on this day; let it say of you: he was at the great battle under the walls of Moscow.”
The French gained the battle at Borodino, at a cost of some thirty thousand men, but they did not destroy the Russian army. Although the Russians lost fifty thousand men, they retreated in good order. Under the circumstances, a victory which allowed the enemy to retire in order was of little use. It was Napoleon’s fault, the critics said; he was inactive. But it was not sluggishness which troubled Napoleon at Borodino. He had a new enemy—a headache. On the day of the battle he suffered so that he was obliged to retire to a ravine to escape the icy wind. In this sheltered spot he paced up and down all day, giving his orders from the reports brought him.
ATTENTION! THE EMPEROR HAS HIS EYE ON US.