CHAPTER XXXVI
Encumbered by a vast amount of booty, a host of camp-followers, and a huge train of vehicles of all sorts, the Grand Army left Moscow, upward of one hundred thousand strong and with some fifty thousand horses. Neither men nor horses had been shod for a winter campaign. The clothing worn by the troops was mostly that of summer. The movement of the troops was slow, because of the enormous baggage. The Emperor wished to retreat by the Kalouga road which would carry him over a country able to support him with provisions. The Russians barred the way, and at Malo-Yaroslavitz the French, under Eugène Beauharnais, attacked and beat them. Falling back to a stronger position, the Russians still barred the way. Military critics say that had not Napoleon’s retreat been so sluggish, he would have outstripped these Russians in their efforts to head him off. Had he burned all that plunder which his army was carrying away, he might have saved his army.
Marshal Bessières and others, sent forward to reconnoitre, reported that the enemy was too strongly intrenched to be dislodged; the army must get back to the old road by which it had come. Napoleon hesitated, listened to reports and advice, lost time, and finally gave the word to retreat by the old route—a fatal decision. What Bessières had seen, according to some authorities, was but a rear-guard: Kutusoff had retreated, and the new route by Kalouga could have been taken by the French.
With heavy heart the Emperor led the way to the other road—that which had already been swept bare in the advance to Moscow.
The Russians did not press the pursuit with any great vigor, but the Grand Army, nevertheless, melted like snow. Men and horses died of starvation, demoralization set in, bands of stragglers were cut off by Cossacks, so that after a battle at Wiasma, and previous to any snow or severe cold, only fifty-five thousand men and twelve thousand horses were fit for active service.
On November 6 the weather changed, and wintry horrors accumulated. The snow, the freezing winds, the icy rains, the lack of food, the want of shelter, the ferocity of pursuing foes, the inhumanity of comrades and friends, the immense plains to be crossed, the deep rivers to be bridged, the enormous burden of despair to be borne,—these were the factors of the most hideous drama war ever presented.
The Grand Army reeled in tattered fragments toward home, fighting, starving, freezing, meeting death in every shape known to man. The French marched in four divisions, commanded by the Emperor, Eugène, Davoust, and Ney. Terrible as was the daily loss by disease, death, and straggling, each of these divisions held its formation, and never failed to stand and fight when the Russians attacked. The unbending courage shown by these commanders, the steadiness of subordinate officers, the despairing gallantry of the remnants of the Grand Army, stand out in bold relief to the general gloom of this mightiest of shipwrecks. Much of the time Napoleon was on foot, clad in furs, staff in hand to help him through the drifts, marching stolidly, silently, with his men. Nothing that he could do was left undone; but that which he could do had little influence on general results as they tramped along. Until they reached Smolensk, he was almost as powerless as the others; after that his superiority saved what was left of the army.
The hardships of the retreat increased after November 14, when Smolensk was left behind. Men fell by the road exhausted, men were blinded by the glare of the light on limitless fields of snow, men were maddened by the intolerable anxieties and woes of the march. In the day the ice cut their rag-covered or naked feet, the wind and freezing rain tortured their hungry, tattered bodies. At night—nights of sixteen fearful hours—bivouac fires were scant and insufficient, and when morning dawned, the circle of sleeping forms around these dismal bivouacs would sometimes remain forever unbroken—the sleep of the soldier was the long one, the final one.
In October the Russian prisoners had said to the French, “In a fortnight the nails will drop from your fingers; you will not be able to hold your guns.” The cold was even worse; not only did nails drop off, the hands dropped off. The time soon came when a benumbed Frenchman, who had fallen into a ditch, and who had piteously begged a passing comrade to lend a helping hand, was answered, “I haven’t any!” There were only the stumps of the arms; the poor fellow’s hands had been frozen off. “But here, catch hold of my cloak,” he continued, and the man in the ditch having caught hold, was dragged to his feet.
Conditions like these made savages of the men. In the rush for food and fire and shelter, the strong tramped down the weak. Frantic with cold and hunger, they fought each other like wolves for place and provisions. The weaker were shut out and died. Horse-flesh was common diet; it is even said that cannibalism occurred. For warmth, artillerymen could be seen holding their hands at the noses of their horses; for food, a soldier was considered lucky who found a little flour, half dirt and chaff, in the cracks of a floor. But in the worst stages of this awful retreat there was human heroism; there was human sympathy and unselfishness. There is nothing finer in the fine character of Eugène Beauharnais than the gallantry with which he set the good example of patience, courage, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. From the time he beat Kutusoff in the first fight after Moscow, to his taking the chief command, which Murat abandoned, his conduct was heroic. Rugged Davoust, the best of the marshals now serving, who would have saved his master at Borodino, and who did snatch him from the burning streets of Moscow, was a tower of strength after the retreat began.