Says General Marbot: “When the sun rose on June 24 we witnessed a most imposing spectacle. On the highest point near the left bank were seen the Emperor’s tents. Around them the slopes of every hill, and the valleys between, were gay with men and horses flashing with arms.” Amid strains of music from the military bands, the eagles were borne forward, and, under the eye of the master, a quarter of a million soldiers began to tramp over the bridges, shouting, “Live the Emperor!” Soon Napoleon himself crossed the bridge, and galloped through the forest at full speed on his Arab, as though it exhilarated him to be upon Russian soil.
The Russians made no attempt to check the invaders. Deceived as to Napoleon’s plan of campaign, their armies were scattered, and soon became involved in the gravest peril. Had it not been for the terrible blunders of Jerome Bonaparte and Junot, the Russian force under Barclay de Tolly must have been cut off and destroyed. Had this been done, it might, like Ulm, have proved decisive. But Napoleon found it impossible to perfect his combinations: the Russian armies escaped, united, and the long campaign began.
Crops had failed in this part of Russia the year before, and the land was scantily supplied with provisions. The troops of the Czar laid waste the country as they retreated; hence the invaders almost immediately began to suffer, for their commissariat could not sustain so tremendous a burden as the feeding of the half million men and one hundred thousand horses. The summer heat was stifling. Men and horses sank under it. One writer gives us a picture of Napoleon himself, stripped to his shirt and lying across a bed, panting and inert with heat. Torrents of rain followed. The roads were cut up, becoming mere sinks of mud. Desertions, straggling, mortalities, marauding, became frightful, so much so that an officer who came up with reserves stated that the route over which the Grand Army had passed looked like that of a defeated foe. Ten thousand horses died for want of forage between the Niemen and Wilna. After the floods came sultry weather again and the suffocating dust of the roads. The hospitals were crowded with the sick. Discipline was lax, movements slow and uncertain. There was a babel of languages, growing confusion, quarrels among officers, and much vacillation in the Emperor himself.
At Wilna the Polish question faced him again. Once more he temporized. He had mortally offended the Czar by enlarging the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, perpetually menacing Russia with a resurrected and vengeful Poland. He now froze the ardor of the Poles by indefinitely postponing the day of their deliverance. When he afterward realized how tremendously effective a united Poland would have been in the death struggle with the Czar, he must have inwardly cursed the bonds which tied his hands—the alliances with Prussia and Austria. Very frankly, very honorably, he told the Polish delegation that his engagements with these two powers made it impossible for him to reëstablish their national independence.
While at Wilna Napoleon received an envoy from the Czar, who proposed that if the French would recross the Niemen, terms of peace might be agreed on. Such an offer seemed to be altogether one-sided, giving substantial advantages to Alexander, and assuring nothing to Napoleon. Therefore it was rejected.
After having lingered at Wilna from June 28 to July 16, a loss of time which Lord Wolseley thinks “it is impossible to explain away when we remember how late it was in the year when he opened the campaign,” the Emperor marched upon Vitebsk. It was here that he learned that Russia had come to terms with Sweden and Turkey.
It was at this place that, according to Ségur, the Emperor exclaimed, “Here I am, and here I will stay,” taking off his sword and throwing it upon the table. He had pursued the Russians some distance beyond the town, had failed to force them into a pitched battle, and had now returned to headquarters. “I will stay here for the winter, complete my army, give it a rest, and organize Poland. The campaign of 1812 is at an end.” Turning to the King of Naples, he continued: “Murat, the first Russian campaign is over. We will plant our standards here. We will intrench and quarter the troops. The year 1813 will see us in Moscow; 1814 in St. Petersburg—the war with Russia is one of three years!”
But he soon became irresolute. The thought of eight months of inaction, with the Grand Army on the defensive, became unbearable. What would the world say? “Europe will say, ‘He stayed at Vitebsk because he dared not advance.’ Am I to give Russia time to arm? How can we go into winter quarters in July? Let us forestall the winter! Peace is at Moscow. Why should we remain here eight months, idle and exposed to treacherous intrigues in the rear, when we can reach our goal in twenty days?”
He did not convince his marshals; they opposed the advance; but he angrily swept their objections aside.
To Duroc he said he would go to Smolensk and there winter. Complaining that his generals were sick of war, that he had made them too rich, that they could think of nothing but the pleasures of the chase on their estates, and the display of themselves in fine carriages in Paris, he ordered the advance upon Smolensk. Once more he failed to secure his much-desired pitched battle. The Russians fought his advance guard stubbornly, and inflicted heavy losses, but during the night they continued their retreat. The French found Smolensk a heap of smoking ruins; French shells and Russian patriots had fired it.