“It was indeed but the shade of an army, but it was the shade of a grand army. It felt itself conquered by nature alone.
“Under these circumstances, the elements appeared more hostile to us than the Russians themselves. Their climate did its part—if they had done theirs.”
In that disastrous retreat there was a most extraordinary accumulation of influences powerfully destructive of health. There was extreme cold, that of an intensely cold climate, there was an insufficiency of food and of clothing, and there was a want of proper habitations,—the wretched sufferers lying almost naked around their fires in the open air, perhaps enjoying the partial protection of a shed, a ruin, or a stable, and sometimes seeking shelter in the carcasses of horses. But there was also present another influence, highly prejudicial to health, and equal of itself to a considerable proportion of the fearful amount of disease which prevailed, and that was depression of mind.
Depression of mind conveyed a withering influence to the hearts of the bold victors of a thousand actions, and paralyzed the whole energies of the system. Here it acted on a gigantic scale, and its work of death, yes, of death itself, was not less prodigious.
The humiliation, the mortifications, and the heart-rending misfortunes of which these once victorious but now unhappy men were the prey, could not but induce a state of mind, which, of all other circumstances, must have been the most favourable to the invasion of disease. Daily experience demonstrates that disease is much favoured by the presence of circumstances, such as are referred to in the following passages.
“That grand army, which, in the course of the preceding twenty years, had marched in triumph through all the capitals of Europe, now, for the first time, reappeared, mutilated, disarmed, and fugitive in one of those (Konigsberg) which its glory had reduced to the greatest abasement. Its inhabitants hastened into the streets, as we passed along, to observe and reckon our wounds, and to estimate by the number and the extent of our misfortunes, the foundation on which they might build their hopes: we were forced to regale their eager and delightful eyes with our miseries; to submit to pass under the yoke of their delight, and, dragging our squalid and miserable forms in full review before their detested scrutiny, to march under the almost insupportable weight of calamity which the hatred of the spectators beheld even with transport.”[[9]]
[9]. Segur’s Expedition to Russia.
The very knowledge and observation of mental distress and bodily suffering creates a depression of mind, and sickness arising therefrom spreads among the spectators, although, in other respects, they are comfortably situated, and have abundance of clothing and wholesome food.
Segur further relates:—“Consternation took possession of the soldiers of Marshal Victor, though unbroken in numbers and in spirits, after having given way to their customary acclamations on beholding their Imperial commander, when, instead of the grand column which was to achieve the conquest of Moscow, they perceived behind Napoleon, only a band of spectres, covered with rags, women’s pelisses, bits of carpet, or with dirty cloaks scorched and burnt by the fire of the bivouacs, and with feet wrapped in the most wretched tatters.”
Depression of mind favours the accession of many diseases. This was noticed when the prevalence of fever was under observation.