CONCLUDING CHAPTER.
THE COST OF WAR.
For the information of such of my readers as have neither the time nor the opportunity of diving into history, I will now give a historic outline of the enormous cost of war in blood and treasure, principally in the campaigns of 1812-13-14 and 1815. Europe, disunited, had been conquered by Napoleon; the only Power setting him at utter defiance being this glorious old isle. Our forefathers had repeatedly assisted the continental nations with enormous sums of money, and arms to combat this tyrant; but lacking unity, and having to confront a master-mind in generalship, at least fifty years before his time, this all-conquering General rolled them all up in detail. In fact the whole of continental Europe was fascinated with a craven-hearted dread of the conqueror’s supposed irresistible power. His very name was worse than a nightmare to thousands. His terrible legions, his invincible legions, the famed and dreaded legions, were the whole talk of Europe. And I am sorry to record it, that there were then, as now, thousands of foolish chicken-hearted men, calling themselves Britons, that predicted our entire destruction as a nation. The redoubted Massena boasted that he would drive all the English leopards into the sea, or cut them to pieces. He commanded an army of veterans, who had marched from victory to victory, from triumph to triumph. But this redoubtable Marshal of France, “the spoilt child of fortune,” received a very awkward lesson from the detested Albions and the boys of the Green Isle, for no regiment on grim Busaco’s iron ridge distinguished themselves so much as the 88th Connaught Rangers. They hurled the boasting legions of Napoleon over the rocks in grand style, well thrashed the invincibility out of the conquerors of Austerlitz, Jena, and Wagram, and largely helped to nail victory to that flag which was, and is now, second to none, and made some of the croaking know-all gents hide their heads. The spell of French invincibility was rudely dissipated, and the designs of the tyrant as regards Spain and Portugal were baffled. We say now, shame on all those that would try to traduce the reputation of those that struggle upon field after field for life or death, for national independence, national honour and happiness. Old England knows nothing of the horrors and miseries of war, the massacres and violations of mothers, wives, and daughters. No! her domestic happiness, human loves, and human friendships are never interrupted or broken; and on each revolving Sabbath, her church bells invite all, rich and poor, to the house of prayer and thanksgiving. Our victorious General, Wellington, repeatedly set the continental nations an example how to thrash Napoleon’s much puffed-up invincibles. “Stick to them, my men!” was often the cry. It was often death, but always victory for us. Austria and Russia were beaten on the one field of Austerlitz. Prussia threw down the gauntlet on the field of Jena, but was completely crushed, nearly all her fortresses being taken from her. She was humbled in the dust, and an indemnity of six hundred and forty million francs (a butcher’s bill of twenty-five million pounds sterling) demanded by the conqueror. This was enforced with merciless fury by the French, in addition to which an enormous host were quartered upon the conquered provinces, which shall be hereafter enumerated. Prussia was held by an iron grasp: close upon one hundred thousand of her noble sons having perished, and she lay prostrate at the conqueror’s feet. But still she fought out a death-struggle with the great conqueror, and on the bloody field of Eylan the conquering hero was brought to a stand. He could not advance, and would not retire; he was brought to the verge of destruction. This terrible battle, my young readers must know, was fought in the depth of winter, amidst ice and snow, and under unexampled horrors. The loss on both sides was immense. The Russians and Prussians lost twenty-five thousand, and the French thirty thousand; thus fifty-five thousand men, with thousands of horses, were weltering in blood in the midst of ice and snow, in a space of two leagues, both sides claiming the victory. Yet another terrible battle was fought at Friedland, in the depth of a Russian winter. The allies here were defeated. They lost seventeen thousand men and five thousand prisoners, with twenty guns. Napoleon was weakened by the loss of ten thousand. The two great Emperors met on a raft on the Niemen, and there made peace, dividing the known world between them. Almost the first words from the Emperor of Russia to the great conqueror were:[39] “I hate the English as much as you do, and am ready to second you in all your enterprises against them.” Napoleon’s answer was: “Peace is already made.” With Napoleon’s talents, he talked the Emperor into anything he liked. Now comes the great Northern Confederation. The whole of the North of Europe were compelled to declare war against Old England. All their ports were closed against us. Spain and Portugal threw in their lot against us. Thus we had the whole of Europe to combat. But our forefathers came out as true Britons. With our unconquerable fleet, and Nelson as our leader, we put the world in arms at defiance. The Confederation had a short life. We blockaded every port in Europe. The whole Danish fleet was taken or sunk at Copenhagen by that heroic Nelson. Proceeding at once to Cronstadt with his victorious fleet, he demanded a conference with the Russian Emperor. It was granted. The ever-victorious Admiral explained our demands. One of the Emperor’s advisers said at once to the Emperor; “Rather than submit to such humiliating terms, we had better have war to the knife.” The gauntlet was thrown down at the feet of him that shook the world with renown. Nelson’s reply was, “With all my heart. You shall have war to your heart’s content in less than one hour” (pointing to his victorious fleet). “Stay,” said the Emperor. They talked it over, and peace with us was signed, which meant war with France. Our victorious Nelson was one too many for the crafty Russians. In writing home, he said to our Minister at War: “I flatter myself that a British Admiral, with a good fleet at his back (he had nearly thirty sail) is the best man you could select to send to negotiate. Some of the Czar’s advisers did not like the terms. I at once gave the Emperor to understand that he could have peace on one hand, or war on the other (pointing to my fleet just outside the harbour). I found I had hit the nail fairly on the head, and at once made peace with the Emperor of all the Russias, and war with Napoleon. He has promised to declare, should that tyrant interfere with him.” Shortly after this, the terrible battle of Trafalgar was fought, which swept the French and Spanish flags from the sea. It was here that Nelson met a glorious death;[40] but this victory proclaimed the commercial death-blow of Napoleon. We say again, it was off the shoals of Trafalgar where the funeral pile of Napoleon’s greatness was witnessed. It frustrated all his deep laid schemes of subjugating us as a nation, and proclaimed that—
“Britain ruled the waves.”
Our forefathers could now laugh at Napoleon’s threats of invasion. The combined fleets of France and Spain were completely annihilated, and before he could attempt to reach our shores, a new fleet and a fresh set of seamen must be forthcoming. But our darling hero had purchased this last triumph with his blood. His name, however, still lives fresh in every true Briton’s heart, and his last signal will be handed down to our children’s children: “England expects that every man this day will do his duty.” Such language has frequently inspired our men amidst the storm of shot and shell, and England has often since had to acknowledge that her sons have done their duty. Europe struggled on under the iron grasp of Napoleon. Spain and Portugal declared war against the tyrant. Oceans of blood were spilt; millions of money that could have been put to good use were lavished upon war material. Russia, Austria, and Prussia again tried to stem the torrent of Napoleon’s conquest; but there was no unity in their camps, and the great conqueror beat them all in detail, up to this. The only time his victorious legions were beaten in the open field was when opposed by our thin red line. Napoleon’s much puffed-up invincibles were beaten, and had to retire from every field on which our conquering general, Wellington, planted his standard. We never once met the enemy in a pitched battle, either by land or sea, but to beat them. The sons of Albion, side by side with the undaunted sons of the Emerald Isle, set an example to Europe. Before the Moscow campaign took place, the flower of the French army were opposed to us in the Peninsula, on the fields of Corunna, Albuera, Barrosa, Busaco, Douro, Fuentes de Oñoro, Roliça, Talavera, and Vimiera; and from 1812 to the end of the war, we met and rolled them up on all the following fields, or stormed their strongholds and took every one from them: Badajoz, Ciudad Rodrigo, Nive, Nivelle, Orthes, Pyrenees, San Sebastian, Salamanca, Toulouse, Vittoria, and Waterloo. Hundreds of thousands of men perished on the above fields. The poor inhabitants were butchered without mercy in cold blood, because they tried to do all they could to help their countrymen in arms. It was a war of extermination for freedom. This war cost us close upon two hundred millions sterling. The Spaniards and Portuguese were all in our pay. But we now approach Napoleon’s great campaign in Russia in 1812. He had, for a long time, been making preparations for it. Russia had set him at defiance, refusing to close her ports against our merchandise. Vast armies, with all kinds of warlike stores, were passing through Germany on to the Russian frontier during the early part of 1812. The great conqueror set out to join, as he thought, his invincible hosts. At Dresden, June 1812, he reached the climax of his earthly fame. He was the centre of attraction; four kings, innumerable princes and dukes, waited upon him: queens were maids of honour to Maria Louisa. But in a few short months this much-exalted hero had to confess that “from the sublime to the ridiculous was but a step.”
The humiliation of Prussia, the conquest of Austria, the dreadful spectacles that thousands who now surrounded Napoleon’s standard had witnessed on the bloody fields of Jena, Austerlitz, Wagram, Eylan, Friedland, with pyramids of friends and foes, bodies all around; with weeping mothers and smiling infants at their breasts, searching amidst the piles of dead for their loved ones. All were for a time forgotten. The conquerors were now to be seen side by side with the vanquished in the above disastrous fields which had struck Germany down. This all-conquering hero was now the king of kings, elevated to the highest pinnacle of fame, surrounded by his Old Guards and the terrible cuirassiers with Prince Murat at their head, who had frequently ridden over Russians, Austrians, Prussians, Spaniards and Portuguese. No power on earth seemed capable of stopping them. As often as their beloved Emperor appeared, the shouts of enthusiasm, with the cry of Vive l’Empereur,[41] rent the air, as they struck their sabres, confident of victory. He was now exalted to the skies, but (so much for human mutability) he proved that, from the exalted pinnacle of fame to the ridiculous was but a step. He invaded Russia without any provocation but ambition, in all the majesty of war, with the strongest and best equipped army that the world had then seen. It consisted of—
| Infantry | 491,953 | Horses | 187,111 | |
| Cavalry | 96,579 | |||
| Artillery | 58,626 | Number of guns | 1,372 | |
| ———— | ||||
| Total of invading army, | 647,158 |
They had some desperate combats on various fields. The Russian army retired, fighting with desperation, when pressed too closely by Napoleon’s host. But 30,000 of the enemy perished, for want of food, before a shot, so to speak, was fired. The only great battle fought on the advance to Moscow was at Borodino, 7th September, 1812: and out of all Napoleon’s vast host, all he could bring into action, after waiting for days to collect stragglers, was 103,000 infantry, 36,000 cavalry, and 593 guns. The terrible battle raged from morning until night; the Russians were not beaten, but almost annihilated. Both sides fought with desperation; the one to save their hearths and homes, the other well knowing they had nothing to fall back upon. This field presented a terrible spectacle: huge masses of men having fought hand-to-hand all day. “Here,” said Napoleon, “is the field where the brave shall find a glorious death: the coward will perish in the deserts of Siberia.” The Russians lost 38 generals and 45,000 officers and men; prisoners and guns taken were about equal: the Russians lost 10 and took 13 guns. The victors (for the French justly claimed the victory, as the Russians retired during the night) lost 32 generals and 52,000 officers and men. All that was left to the boasting enemy was the bloody field, for the dead and dying lay in ghastly piles, friend and foe mixed together. The victors were in a worse plight than the vanquished; they had to lie down supperless on the field of gore, and get up breakfastless. The Russians had plenty to eat, and retired next day to Moscow. The enemy followed them up, and entered Moscow in triumph, amidst martial music and ringing shouts of Vive l’Empereur. A strange scene presented itself; not a living soul to meet the great conqueror. He was entering into a deserted city. All the inhabitants had fled. Moscow, with all its palaces and stately mansions, was abandoned to the foe. But it was soon enveloped in flames. Napoleon had expected that, as their capital was in his hands, he would have been able to dictate to the Emperor Alexander his own terms of peace. But no! he had fought his way for a thousand miles from the Niemen: he had beaten the Russian army: he had taken their capital, which was all in flames around him. But he could not subdue a brave nation, who had sworn to die to a man or conquer the great tyrant. The Spaniards and Portuguese, backed up by old England, had set Europe an example how to combat for their liberty. The noble heroism displayed in the defence of Saragossa had set Europe in a blaze. The orders of Alexander to his generals were, not to attempt to negotiate, but to fight to the death. The great conqueror was compelled to eat a large slice of humble pie, “and order a retreat” from the midst of a people he could not subdue.
It is a point of the highest importance, involving, as it does, a decisive refutation of the assertion so often repeated and handed down to our children, “that it was the cold in Russia which destroyed Napoleon’s grand army,” which crossed the Niemen, June, 1812. Out of this vast host under Napoleon’s immediate command, before a single flake of snow fell, 247,000 men and 92,000 horses had perished by the ravages of war and starvation. Other corps, under command of different marshals, suffered in proportion. As the army advanced, it got worse and worse. The great multitude of mouths destroyed Napoleon. Reinforcements kept joining the great conqueror at Moscow; and when the retreat commenced, he had more than replaced what he had lost at Borodino. They turned their faces towards the sunny south, laden with the spoil of Moscow. Napoleon thought of retiring by another road. But no, no. The Russians, now augmented to about 150,000 men, with nearly 50,000 cavalry, took up a strong position at Malo-Jaeoslowitz, and beat the conqueror. This field presented a horrible spectacle. The town was built of wood; and for hours desperate hand-to-hand fighting took place in its narrow streets, which, became completely choked with dead and dying, friend and foe. The houses on both sides the streets were enwrapt in flames. The guns (French) were ordered forward. They dashed on at a gallop, crushing over the heaps of both friend and foe, as they lay weltering in blood and flames. The Russians had not died for nothing. They, as brave men, died to save the honour of their homes, their wives, their mothers, and their daughters. They beat the tyrant, and compelled him to retire by a route that was already exhausted. The consequences of this bloody engagement were most disastrous to the French. There was no alternative for it now. It was most humiliating. He who had set Europe at defiance, must now retire by the wasted road via Smolensk. Guns and prisoners were captured every day. The Russian army hung upon their flanks and rear. To go into all the fights that took place during that terrible retreat would fill a large volume. The dreadful passage of the river Beresina, on the retreat, completed the ruin of the grand army. The Russian Commander-in-Chief, Kutusoff, shrank from the responsibility of facing the hero of so many fields. He had felt the weight of one hundred and fifty thousand men on the bloody field of Borodino. He did not know that it was but the wreck of the once grand army that was before him. Had he but posted his victorious army on the heights on the banks of that noble stream, Napoleon, with the remainder of his dejected, half-famished army, must have been all slain, drowned, or taken prisoners. Had Wellington been there, with such an army as the Russian chief commanded, the subsequent slaughter in the campaigns of 1813-14 and 1815 would have been avoided. Napoleon would most likely have met a soldier’s death. It was well ordained by an all-wise God. The nation that had defied the laws of God and man would not have been humbled, as they were subsequently, after the carnage of Leipsic and the rout at Waterloo. But the sight of his old Guards was enough; they had decided every field for the last twenty years where Napoleon commanded. The passage of the river was disputed by Kutusoff’s lieutenants (by his permission). The bloody struggle at the temporary bridges is almost beyond description. The Russian guns, planted on the heights, played with terrible effect upon the mass of the terror-stricken, confused multitude. In the midst of the confusion, one of the bridges broke, and all upon it miserably perished in the masses of floating ice. The frantic crowd (for discipline was all gone) at once rushed to the remaining bridge. The artillery and cavalry cut their way through their comrades, plunging, like the car of Juggernaut, through dead and dying. Thousands were mobbed into the river—now a raging torrent of floating ice. Heaven and earth seemed combined to destroy a nation of infidels; for the rain came down in torrents, converting a gentle stream into a raging torrent. In the midst of this dreadful scene, with the Russian guns firing as fast as possible upon the remaining bridge, it caught fire. Despair and misery now rendered the enemy desperate. Numbers rushed on to the burning bridge; it broke, and all were lost.
The scene now became awful. All retreat cut off, thousands must now die or surrender. The magnitude of the disaster to the French was manifest in the spring. Twelve thousand dead bodies were found washed up on the banks of the river, fourteen thousand more were killed, and sixteen thousand taken prisoners. Nearly all their artillery were lost. In the midst of this terrible scene, mothers were seen lifting their infants above their heads in the water, holding them up until they were exhausted, then sinking beneath the waves. An infant found near the gate of Smolensko, abandoned by its wretched mother, was adopted by the Old Guard. Carried between them, it was saved in the midst of the horrors of the Beresina. It was again seen on the bridge of Kowno, and finally escaped all the horrors of the retreat, and eventually met a soldier’s death, as colonel commanding the Zouaves, at the storming of the Malakoff. A number of men became mad from the frightful accumulation of disasters all around them; others were reduced to a state of idiocy. Their eyes were fixed; with a haggard look they marched on, not knowing what they were doing. Commands, outrageous blows—nothing could rouse them; and at night they would sink to the ground, and perish for want of food. Others would carelessly sit down upon the dead bodies of their comrades, and resign themselves to rest, to sleep, and death. Others marched on resolutely; but at length their limbs tottered, their steps became shorter, they fell behind their more robust comrades (tears often running down their cheeks); their knees smote each other, they staggered like drunken men, then fell to rise no more, completely exhausted for want of food. Others marched on, taking no notice. All at once symptoms of paralysis appeared, their knees shook, their arms fell from their hands, and they sank down by the wayside, with a fixed look, watching the crowd until they sank from exhaustion and died—cursing him who had been the cause of all their misery. When remonstrated with about his foolhardy march to Moscow to humble Alexander, by some of the heads of his army, and the head of the Roman Church, his answer was: “Do you think that the arms will drop from my soldiers’ hands?” They did, however, drop by thousands. One of his faithful Old Guard, looking death in the face, said to a comrade: “Your assistance is in vain, my friend;” then faintly murmured: “He has ruined us all. The only favour I ask is, to carry to my children these decorations (see that the enemies do not pollute them). I won them on the fields of Jena, Austerlitz, Eylan, Friedland, and Spain.” He then sank back and expired, for lack of the common necessaries of life. Others, their fingers and toes dropped off, from the extreme frost. Their arms fell to the ground, but they still staggered on until night. In every bivouac, hundreds of corpses were found sitting around what had been their watch-fires, stiff dead; to all appearance looking at each other—their eyes fixed. Others, that could not get near the fire, were found sitting back to back. They had devoured the last morsel of horse-flesh, their strength failed them, and they sank and died from starvation. Such a picture is only too true. These are what some madmen call the glories of war.