The success of the war, therefore, in no degree depended on the cession of Galicia, or the difficulties arising from the Austrian jealousy respecting that possession. Napoleon consequently might, on his entrance into Vilna, have publicly proclaimed the liberation of the whole of Poland, instead of betraying the expectations of her people, confounding and rendering them indifferent by expressions of doubtful import. This was one of those decisive issues which occur in politics as well as in war, and which determine the future. No consideration ought to have made Napoleon swerve from his purpose. But whether it was that he reckoned too much on the ascendency of his genius, or the strength of his army and the weakness of Alexander; or that, considering what he left behind him, he felt it too dangerous to carry on so distant a war slowly and methodically; or whether, as we shall presently be told by himself, he had doubts of the success of his undertaking, certain it is that he either neglected or could not yet venture to proclaim the liberation of that country whose freedom he had come to restore. Yet he had sent an ambassador to her diet; and when this inconsistency was remarked to him he replied that that nomination was an act of war, which only bound him during the war, while by his words he would be bound both in war and peace. Thus it was that he made no other answer to the enthusiasm of the Lithuanians than evasive expressions, at the very time he was following up his attack on Alexander to the very capital of his empire.
He even neglected to clear the southern Polish provinces of the feeble hostile armies which kept the patriotism of their inhabitants in check, and to secure, by strongly organising their insurrection, a solid basis of operation. Accustomed to short methods and to rapid attacks, he wished to do as he had done before, in spite of the difference of places and circumstances; for such is the weakness of man that he is always led by imitation, either of others or of himself, which in the latter case is habit, for habit is nothing more than the imitation of one’s self. Accordingly, it is by their strongest side that great men are often undone![h]
Napoleon Invades Russia (1812 A.D.)
[1812 A.D.]
On the 24th of June, 1812, Napoleon crossed the Niemen, the Russian frontier, not far from Kovno. The season was already too far advanced. It may be that, deceived by the mildness of the winter of 1806 to 1807, he imagined it possible to protract the campaign without peril to himself until the winter months. No enemy appeared to oppose his progress. Barclay de Tolly, the Russian commander-in-chief, pursued the system followed by the Scythians against Dairus, and perpetually retiring before the enemy gradually drew him deep into the dreary and deserted steppes. This plan originated with Scharnhorst, by whom General Lieven was advised not to hazard an engagement until the winter, and to turn a deaf ear to every proposal of peace. General Lieven, on reaching Barclay’s headquarters, took into his confidence Colonel Toll, a German, Barclay’s right hand, and Lieutenant-Colonel Clausewitz, also a German, afterwards noted for his strategical works.
General Pfül, another German, at that time high in the emperor’s confidence, and almost all the Russian generals opposed Scharnhorst’s plan, and continued to advance with a view of giving battle: but on Napoleon’s appearance at the head of an army greatly their superior in number, before the Russians had been able to concentrate their forces, they were naturally compelled to retire before him; and, on the prevention, for some weeks, of the junction of a newly levied Russian army under Prince Bagration with the forces under Barclay, owing to the rapidity of Napoleon’s advance, Scharnhorst’s plan was adopted as the only one feasible.
Whilst the French were advancing, a warm and tedious discussion was carried on so long in the imperial Russian council of war at Vilna, whether to defend that city, or adopt the plan of Barclay de Tolly, the minister of war and commander-in-chief, that they were at length obliged to march precipitately to the Dvina with the sacrifice of considerable stores, and to take possession of a fortified camp which had been established at Drissa. As late as the 27th the emperor Alexander and the whole of his splendid staff and court were assembled at a ball, at the castle of Zacrest, near Vilna, belonging to General Bennigsen, so that the French found everything on the 28th just as it had been prepared for the reception of the emperor of Russia. They plundered the castle, and carried off the furniture as booty; the Russians were even obliged to leave behind them considerable quantities of ammunition and provisions.
In this way the line of the Russian defences was broken through; and even a portion of their army under Platov and Bagration would have been cut off, had the king of Westphalia obeyed the commands of his brother with the necessary rapidity. The difficulties of carrying on war in such an inhospitable country as Lithuania and Russia became apparent even at Vilna; the carriages and wagons fell behind, the cannon were obliged to be left, discipline became relaxed, above ten thousand horses had already fallen, and their carcases poisoned the air. General Balakov could scarcely be considered serious in the proposals which he then made for peace in the name of the emperor of Russia, because the Russians required as a preliminary to all negotiation that the French army should first retire behind the Niemen. The mission of a general, who had been minister of police, and had therefore had great experience in obtaining information, had no doubt a very different object in view from that of making peace at such a moment.
Napoleon, in the hope of overtaking the Russians, and of compelling them to give battle, pushed onwards by forced marches; the supplies were unable to follow, and numbers of the men and horses sank from exhaustion, owing to over-fatigue, heat, and hunger. On the arrival of Napoleon in Witepsk, of Schwarzenberg in Volhinia, of the Prussians before Riga, the army might have halted, reconquered Poland, have been organised, the men put into winter quarters, the army have again taken the field early in the spring, and the conquest of Russia have been slowly but surely completed. But Napoleon had resolved upon terminating the war in one rapid campaign, upon defeating the Russians, seizing their metropolis, and dictating terms of peace. He incessantly pursued his retreating opponent, whose footsteps were marked by the flames of the cities and villages and by the devastated country to their rear. The first serious opposition was made at Smolensk, whence the Russians, however, speedily retreated after setting the city on fire. On the same day, the Bavarians, who had diverged to one side during their advance, had a furious encounter at Polotsk with a body of Russian troops under Wittgenstein. The Bavarians remained stationary in this part of the country for the purpose of watching the movements of that general, whilst Napoleon, careless of the peril with which he was threatened by the approach of winter and by the multitude of enemies gathered to his rear, advanced with the main body of the grand army from Smolensk across the wasted country upon Moscow, the ancient metropolis of the Russian empire.