Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by John L. Stephens

In the tenth century the Poles were a powerful and warlike nation. In the fourteenth Lithuania was incorporated with it, and Poland became one of the most powerful monarchies in Europe. For two centuries it was the bulwark of Christendom against the alarming invasions of the Turks; the reigns of Sigismund and Sobieski hold a high place in military history; and, until the beginning of the last century, its martial character gave it a commanding influence in Europe.

It is unnecessary to trace the rapid and irrecoverable fall of Poland. On the second partition, Kosciusko, animated by his recent struggle for liberty in America, roused his countrymen to arms. But the feet of three giants were upon her breast; and Suwarrow, marching upon the capital, storming the fortress of Praga, and butchering in cold blood thirty thousand inhabitants, extinguished, apparently for ever, the rights and the glories of Poland. Living as we do apart from the rest of the world, with no national animosities transmitted by our fathers, it is impossible to realize the feeling of deadly hatred existing between neighbouring nations from the disputes of ancestors centuries ago. The history of Russia and Poland presents a continued series of bloodstained pages. Battle after battle has nourished their mutual hate, and for a long time it had been the settled feeling of both that Russia or Poland must fall. It is perhaps fortunate for the rest of Europe that this feeling has always existed; for, if they were united in heart, the whole south of Europe would lie at the mercy of their invading armies. Napoleon committed a fatal error in tampering with the brave and patriotic Poles; for he might have rallied around him a nation of soldiers who, in gratitude, would have stood by him until they were exterminated.

But to return to Vitepsk. Here, for the first time, we fell into the memorable road traversed by Napoleon on his way to Moscow. The town stands on the banks of the Dwina, built on both sides of the river, and contains a population of about fifteen thousand, a great portion of whom are Jews. In itself, it has but little to engage the attention of the traveller; but I strolled through its streets with extraordinary interest, remembering it as the place where Napoleon decided on his fatal march to Moscow. It was at the same season and on the very same day of the year that the "grand army," having traversed the gloomy forests of Lithuania in pursuit of an invincible and intangible enemy, with the loss of more than a hundred thousand men, emerged from the last range of woods and halted at the presence of the hostile fires that covered the plain before the city. Napoleon slept in his tent on an eminence at the left of the main road, and before sunrise appeared at the advanced posts, and by its first rays saw the Russian army, eighty thousand strong, encamped on a high plain commanding all the avenues of the city. Ten thousand horsemen made a show of defending its passes; and at about ten o'clock, Murat le Beau Sabreur, intoxicated by the admiration his presence excited, at the head of a single regiment of chasseurs charged the whole Russian cavalry. He was repulsed, and driven back to the foot of the hillock on which Napoleon stood. The chasseurs of the French guards formed a circle around him, drove off the assailant lancers, and the emperor ordered the attack to cease; and, pointing to the city, his parting words to Murat were, "To-morrow at five o'clock the sun of Austerlitz."

At daylight the camp of Barclay de Tolly was deserted; not a weapon, not a single valuable left behind; and a Russian soldier asleep under a bush was the sole result of the day expected to be so decisive. Vitepsk, except by a few miserable Jews and Jesuits, like the Russian camp, was also abandoned. The emperor mounted his horse and rode through the deserted camp and desolate streets of the city. Chagrined and mortified, he pitched his tents in an open courtyard; but, after a council of war with Murat, Eugene, and others of his principal officers, laid his sword upon the table, and resolved to finish in Vitepsk the campaign of that year. Well had it been for him had he never changed that determination. He traced his line of defence on the map, and explored Vitepsk and its environs as a place where he was likely to make a long residence; formed establishments of all kinds; erected large ovens capable of baking at once thirty thousand loaves of bread; pulled down a range of stone houses which injured the appearance of the square of the palace, and made arrangements for opening the theatre with Parisian actors. But in a few days he was observed to grow restless; the members of his household recollected his expression at the first view of the deserted Vitepsk, "Do you think I have come so far to conquer these miserable huts?" Segur says that he was observed to wander about his apartments as if pursued by some dangerous temptation. Nothing could rivet his attention. Every moment he began, stopped, and resumed his labour. At length, overwhelmed with the importance of the considerations that agitated him, "he threw himself on the floor of his apartment; his frame, exhausted by the heat and the struggles of his mind, could only bear a covering of the slightest texture. He rose from his sleepless pillow possessed once more with the genius of war; his voice deepens, his eyes flash fire, and his countenance darkens. His attendants retreat from his presence, struck with mingled awe and respect. His plan is fixed, his determination taken, his order of march traced out."

The last council occupied eight hours. Berthier by a melancholy countenance, by lamentations, and even by tears; Lobau by the cold and haughty frankness of a warrior; Caulaincourt with obstinacy and impetuosity amounting to violence; Duroc by a chilling silence, and afterward by stern replies; and Daru straightforward and with firmness immoveable, opposed his going; but, as if driven on by that fate he almost defied, he broke up the council with the fatal determination. "Blood has not been shed, and Russia is too great to yield without fighting. Alexander can only negotiate after a great battle. I will proceed to the holy city in search of that battle, and I will gain it. Peace waits me at the gates of Moscow." From that hour commenced that train of terrible disasters which finally drove him from the throne of France, and sent him to die an exile on a small island in the Indian Ocean. I walked out on the Moscow road, by which the grand army, with pomp and martial music, with Murat, and Ney, and Duroc, and Daru, inspired by the great names of Smolensk and Moscow, plunged into a region of almost pathless forest, where most of them were destined to find a grave. I was at first surprised at the utter ignorance of the inhabitants of Vitepsk, in regard to the circumstances attending the occupation of the city by Napoleon. A Jew was my cicerone, who talked of the great scenes of which this little city had in his own day been the theatre almost as matter of tradition, and without half the interest with which, even now, the Greek points the stranger to the ruins of Argos or the field of Marathon; and this ignorance in regard to the only matters that give an interest to this dreary road I remarked during the whole journey. I was so unsuccessful in my questions, and the answers were so unsatisfactory, that my companion soon became tired of acting as my interpreter. Indeed, as he said, he himself knew more than any one I met, for he had travelled it before in company with an uncle, of the Polish legion; but even he was by no means familiar with the ground.

We left Vitepsk with a set of miserable horses, rode all night, and at noon of the next day were approaching the banks of the Berezina, memorable for the dreadful passage which almost annihilated the wretched remnant of Napoleon's army. It was impossible, in passing over the same ground, not to recur to the events of which it had been the scene. The "invincible legions," which left Vitepsk two hundred thousand strong, were now fighting their dreadful retreat from Moscow through regulars and Cossacks, reduced to less than twelve thousand men marching in column, with a train of thirty thousand undisciplined followers, sick, wounded, and marauders of every description. The cavalry which crossed the Niemen thirty-seven thousand in number was reduced to one hundred and fifty men on horseback. Napoleon collected all the officers who remained mounted, and formed them into a body, in all about five hundred, which he called his sacred squadron; officers served as privates, and generals of divisions as captains. He ordered the carriages of the officers, many of the wagons, and even the eagles belonging to the different corps, to be burned in his presence; and drawing his sword, with the stern remark that he had sufficiently acted the emperor, and must once more play the general, marched on foot at the head of his old guard. He had hardly reorganized before the immense pine forests which border the Berezina echoed with the thunder of the Russian artillery; in a moment all remains of discipline were lost. In the last stage of weakness and confusion they were roused by loud cries before them, and, to their great surprise and joy, recognised the armies of Victor and Oudinot. The latter knew nothing of the terrible disasters of the army of Moscow, and they were thrown into consternation and then melted to tears when they saw behind Napoleon, instead of the invincible legions which had left them in splendid equipments, a train of gaunt and spectral figures, their faces black with dirt, and long bristly beards, covered with rags, female pelisses, pieces of carpet, with bare and bleeding feet, or bundled with rags, and colonels and generals marching pellmell with soldiers, unarmed and shameless, without any order or discipline, kept together and sleeping round the same fires only by the instinct of self-preservation.

About noon we drove into the town of Borizoff. It stands on the banks of the Berezina, and is an old, irregular-looking place, with a heavy wooden church in the centre of an open square. As usual, at the door of the posthouse a group of Jews gathered around us. When Napoleon took possession of Borizoff the Jews were the only inhabitants who remained; and they, a scattered, wandering, and migratory people, without any attachment of soil or country, were ready to serve either the French or Russians, according to the inducements held out to them. A few noble instances are recorded where this persecuted and degraded people exhibited a devotion to the land that sheltered them honourable to their race and to the character of man; but in general they were false and faithless. Those who gathered around us in Borizoff looked as though they might be the very people who betrayed the Russians. One of them told us that a great battle had been fought there, but we could not find any who had been present at the fatal passage of the river. We dined at the posthouse, probably with less anxiety than was felt by Napoleon or any of the flying Frenchmen; but even we were not permitted to eat in peace; for, before we had finished, our vehicle was ready, with worse horses than usual, and a surlier postillion. We sent the postillion on ahead, and walked down to the bank of the river. On the night preceding the passage, Napoleon himself had command of Borizoff, with six thousand guards prepared for a desperate contest. He passed the whole night on his feet; and while waiting for the approach of daylight in one of the houses on the border of the river, so impracticable seemed the chance of crossing with the army that Murat proposed to him to put himself under the escort of some brave and determined Poles, and save himself while there was yet time; but the emperor indignantly rejected the proposition as a cowardly flight. The river is here very broad, and divided into branches. On the opposite side are the remains of an embankment that formed part of the Russian fortifications. When the Russians were driven out of Borizoff by Oudinot, they crossed the river, burned the bridge, and erected these embankments.

Besides the sanguinary contest of the French and Russians, this river is also memorable for a great battle between my companion and our postillion. In the middle of the bridge the postillion stopped and waited till we came up; he grumbled loudly at being detained, to which my companion replied in his usual conciliatory and insinuating manner, by laying his cane over the fellow's shoulders; but on the bridge of Borizoff the blood of the Lithuanian was roused; and, perhaps, urged on by the memory of the deeds done there by his fathers, he sprang out of the wagon, and with a warcry that would not have disgraced a Cossack of the Don, rushed furiously upon my friend. Oh for a Homer to celebrate that fight on the bridge of Borizoff! The warriors met, not like Grecian heroes, with spear and shield, and clad in steel, but with their naked fists and faces bare to take the blows. My friend was a sublime spectacle. Like a rock, firm and immoveable, he stood and met the charge of the postillion; in short, in the twinkling of an eye he knocked the postillion down. Those who know say that it is more trying to walk over a field of battle after all is over than to be in the fight; and I believe it from my experience in our trying passage of the Berezina; for, when I picked up the discomfited postillion, whose face was covered with blood, I believe that I had the worst of it. All great victories are tested by their results, and nothing could be more decisive than that over the postillion. He arose a wiser and much more tractable man. At first he looked very stupid when he saw me leaning over him, and very startled when he rubbed his hand over his face and saw it stained with blood; but, raising himself, he caught sight of his victor, and without a word got into the wagon, walked the horses over the bridge, and at the other end got out and threw himself on the ground.

It was a beautiful afternoon, and we lingered on the bridge. Crossing it, we walked up the bank on the opposite side toward the place where Napoleon erected his bridges for the passage of his army. All night the French worked at the bridges by the light of the enemy's fires on the opposite side. At daylight the fires were abandoned, and the Russians, supposing the attempt here to be a feint, were seen in full retreat. The emperor, impatient to get possession of the opposite bank, pointed it out to the bravest. A French aiddecamp and Lithuanian count threw themselves into the river, and, in spite of the ice, which cut their horses' breasts, reached the opposite bank in safety. About one o'clock the bank on which we stood was entirely cleared of Cossacks, and the bridge for the infantry was finished. The first division crossed it rapidly with its cannon, the men shouting "Vive l'empereur!" The passage occupied three days. The number of stragglers and the quantity of baggage were immense. On the night of the twenty-seventh the stragglers left the bridge, tore down the whole village, and made fires with the materials, around which they crouched their shivering figures, and from which it was impossible to tear themselves away. At daylight they were roused by the report of Witgenstein's cannon thundering over their heads, and again all rushed tumultuously to the bridges. The Russians, with Platow and his Cossacks, were now in full communication on both sides of the river. On the left bank, Napoleon's own presence of mind and the bravery of his soldiers gave him a decided superiority; but, in the language of Scott, the scene on the right bank had become the wildest and most horrible which war can exhibit.

"Victor, with eight or ten thousand men, covered the retreat over the bridges, while behind his line thousands of stragglers, old men, women, and children, were wandering by the side of this river like the fabled spectres which throng the banks of the infernal Styx, seeking in vain for passage. The balls of the Russians began to fall among the disordered mass, and the whole body rushed like distracted beings toward the bridges, every feeling of prudence or humanity swallowed up by the animal instinct of self-preservation. The weak and helpless either shrunk from the fray and sat down to wait their fate at a distance, or, mixing in it, were thrust over the bridges, crushed under carriages, cut down with sabres, or trampled to death under the feet of their countrymen. All this while the action continued with fury; and, as if the heavens meant to match their wrath with that of man, a hurricane arose and added terrors to a scene which was already of a character so dreadful. About midday the larger bridge, constructed for artillery and heavy carriages, broke down, and multitudes were forced into the water. The scream of the despairing multitude became at this crisis for a moment so universal, that it rose shrilly above the wild whistling of the tempest and the sustained and redoubled hourras of the Cossacks. The dreadful scene continued till dark. As the obscurity came on, Victor abandoned the station he had defended so bravely, and led the remnant of his troops in their turn across. All night the miscellaneous multitude continued to throng across the bridge under the fire of the Russian artillery. At daybreak the French engineers finally set fire to the bridge, and all that remained on the other side, including many prisoners, and a great quantity of guns and baggage, became the property of the Russians. The amount of the French loss was never exactly known; but the Russian report concerning the bodies of the invaders, which were collected and burned as soon as the thaw permitted, states that upward of thirty-six thousand were found in the Berezina."