Napoleon started on this disastrous campaign, which was the prelude to his downfall, with an army of about four hundred and twenty thousand men, most of them doomed to perish in the snows of Russia. The river Niemen was crossed, and, on June 28, Napoleon made his public entry into Wilna, which had not long since, and very hurriedly, been evacuated by the Emperor Alexander.
But even the commencement of this campaign was marked by disaster. Napoleon had arranged all the details; but the incompetence, or worse, of his subordinates failed to carry them out. After the Niemen had been crossed, not a third of the provisions necessary for the army had arrived, and at Wilna it was found that some hundreds of men had perished from want and fatigue. The mortality was worse among the horses, having lost about ten thousand. Before a battle was fought, and scarcely a month from the commencement of the campaign, there were twenty-five thousand sick men in the hospitals at Wilna.
Napoleon waited a fortnight at Wilna; but the Russians were driven back from Ostrovno, by Murat, and more time was consumed at Witepsk. Then came the attack on Smolensko, on August 16 and 17, when the French lost 15,000, and the Russians 10,000 men, and the Russians still kept the city. But next day, when the French again advanced against it, they found it deserted. For this the Russian general, Barclay de Tolly, was deprived of his command, forasmuch as he had given up a holy city to the enemy without fighting a pitched battle for its preservation.
But, to proceed somewhat chronologically, we must remember that, on July 22, Wellington gained a great victory at Salamanca, where the French lost eleven pieces of cannon, two eagles, and six colours, one general, 136 other officers, and 7,000 prisoners. The general public did not know this news till the 4th of August, and the illuminations in its honour did not take place till the 17th, 18th, and 19th of August. It is to this event, doubtless, that the following refers.
In September 1812 was published a caricature of ‘British Welcome or a Visit from the Bantam to the Lion.
Though Bantam Boney claps his wings,
Yet this we may rely on:
He’ll turn his tail and run away
Whene’er he meets the Lion.’
And that is precisely as he is represented in the caricature. The pursuing lion says, ‘So, my little Bantam, you are come to pay me a visit—Well lets have a shake of your claw.’ But the bantam, with a very terrified expression of countenance, declines: ‘Excusé moi, Monsr le Lion, you gripe too hard.’
The battle of Borodino (or, as the French call it, Moskowa) was fought on September 7, and was, probably, the bloodiest of all Napoleon’s battles, but it laid Moscow open to the conqueror.
But soon the cloudless sun was gone,
And a thick fog arose thereon—
Nap prais’d the fog—indeed he did,
Because his movements would be hid—
And to the army, in array,
This was the order of the day—
‘Brave soldiers! fight for endless glory,
The wish’d-for field now lies before ye,
You’ll with abundance be supplied,
Good winter quarters, too, beside—
A quick return home—that is more;
Then fight, my lads, as heretofore;
Posterity will say—There’s one
Who was at Moscow when ’twas won.’
The French and Russians now engaged,
And furiously the battle raged;
In great confusion, and dismay,
Poor Boney’s scatter’d troops gave way;
Our hero his assaults repeated,
And still the wounded French retreated.
‘This battle,’ Nap exclaim’d, ‘has been,
The greatest that was ever seen.’
And true enough, our hero said,
For eighty thousand men lay dead.