But the temperature grew daily more rigorous. The cold wind of autumn rendered bivouacs insupportable to the enemy, and drove him thence in the morning long before daybreak. He struck camp in the darkness, and lighted his way along the road by means of lanterns. Each corps tried to pass the other. The passage of the rivers, on rafts or bridges, was made in the greatest disorder, and the baggage accumulated so as to arrest the movements of the army. The provisions which the soldiers had laid in at Moscow, and which they carried on their backs, were quickly consumed, and they began to eat horseflesh. The prices of food and of warm clothes and footgear became exorbitant. To stray from the road for the purpose of procuring food was an impossibility, for the Cossacks who were prowling right and left killed or made prisoners all who fell into their hands. The peasants from the villages bordering on the route, dressed in cloaks, shakos, plumed helmets, and steel cuirasses which they had taken from the French, often joined the Don Cossacks or Miloradovitch’s advance guard. Some were armed with scythes, others with thick, iron-shod staves, or halberds, and a few carried firearms. They came out of the forests in which they had taken refuge with their families, greeted the Russian army on its appearance, congratulated it on the flight of the enemy, and by way of farewells to the latter took a just vengeance upon it. With the enemy the fear of falling into the hands of the Cossacks and peasants triumphed over the sense of hunger and deterred them from plundering. The French began to throw away their arms. The first to set the example were the regiments of light cavalry, to whom infantry muskets had been distributed at Moscow. The regiments being mixed together, they shook off all discipline. The disarmed men were at first few in number, and as they trailed along in the wake of the army they agglomerated them like snowballs.
The sick and those overcome by fatigue were abandoned on the road without the least pity. In fear of losing their flags the leaders of regiments removed them from their staves and gave them in keeping to the strongest and most tried soldiers, who hid them in their haversacks or under their uniforms, or wrapped them round their bodies. When Napoleon had passed Gzhatsk, he no longer rode on horseback in the midst of his troops, but drove in a carriage, wrapped himself in a green velvet cloak lined with sable furs, and put on warm boots and a fur cap.
The Battle of Viazma; Smolensk is Found Evacuated
The retreat was performed so rapidly, that Miloradovitch could not begin the pursuit of the enemy till he had arrived at Viazma. On the 22nd of October, he attacked the French near this town and beat them. Three guns and two flags were taken from them and two thousand of them were made prisoners. When Viazma had been passed, Kutuzov ordered Miloradovitch to follow in the enemy’s track and to press him as much as possible, and Platov to get ahead of his right, and attack it in front, as Orlov Denissov was to do on his left; the guerillas had orders to march quickly on Smolensk. He exhorted the whole army to harass the French day and night. Kutuzov with the main body proceeded on the left, on a level with Miloradovitch, to be able to reach Orscha by the shortest road, in case Napoleon should effect his retreat on that town; but, if he took the direction of Mohilev, to stop his way and cover the district whence the Russian army drew its provisions. Kutuzov was inflexible in the resolution he had taken to keep Napoleon on the Smolensk road, which was so completely wasted, and to force him to die of hunger there rather than allow him to penetrate into the southern governments, where he might have obtained provisions. Anxious to know if Napoleon would not bear to the left towards Ielna and Mstislavl, and thence to Mohilev, Kutuzov did not confine himself to insisting on personally directing his army on the road, whence he could prevent this movement, but he ordered the Kaluga militia, reinforced by Cossacks and some regular cavalry regiments, to advance rapidly from Kaluga and Roslavl on Ielna; that of Tula to march on Roslavl, that of Smolensk on Ielna, and that of Little Russia to do its utmost promptly to occupy Mohilev.
Such were, in outline, the directions which Kutuzov gave to the army after the battle of Viazma, when the enemy found itself under the stern necessity of struggling with a new calamity which it had not yet experienced—namely, severe cold. The winds raged and thick snow fell for five days; it blinded the soldiers and lay so thick as to arrest their march. The French horses, not being rough-shod, fell under the guns, under the carts, and under their riders; men were lying on the route, dead or dying, dragging themselves along like reptiles, in villages reduced to ashes and round overturned wagons and caissons which the powder had blown to pieces. Many among them were seized with madness. It was in this state that, on the 31st of October, Napoleon led his army back to Smolensk, which he hastened to reach as the promised land, never doubting that he would be able to halt there. The thought of wintering in Smolensk supported soldiers exhausted by fatigue and warmed those overcome by the cold; each one collected his remaining strength to reach the town where their misfortunes were to end. On catching sight of the distant summits of Smolensk, the enemy rejoiced and forgot hunger and thirst. Arrived at the town they rushed into it by thousands, stifling and killing each other in its narrow gates, ran for the provisions they believed themselves sure of finding, and seeking for warm habitations; but it was in vain; for soon like a thunderclap the news was echoed that there was in Smolensk neither food nor refuge; that it was impossible to stay there; that they must go on. Twenty degrees of cold came to crown their misfortunes, but this suddenly ceased—the next day it thawed; otherwise the sudden extinction of the enemy would have been inevitable.
Smolensk presented a horrible spectacle. From the Moscow gate to the line of the Dnieper, the ground was strewn with corpses and dead horses. Fire had turned the Moscow suburb into a desert; in it and on the snow which covered the ice on the Dnieper were to be seen wagons, caissons of ammunition, ambulances, cannon, pontoons, muskets, pistols, bayonets, drums, cuirasses, shakos, bearskins, musical instruments, ramrods, swords, and sabres. Amongst the corpses on the banks appeared a long file of wagons, not yet unharnessed but whose horses had fallen down and whose drivers lay half dead in their seats. In other places horses were lying with the entrails protruding from their bodies. Their bellies were split open, for the soldiers had tried to warm their frozen limbs there, or to appease their hunger. Where the river banks ended, along the road which skirted the walls of the town, were seen five versts away six or more ranks of caissons of ammunition and projectiles, calashes from Moscow, carriages, droshkies, travelling forges. The French, frozen with cold, ran hither and thither, wrapped in priests’ cassocks, in surplices, in women’s cloaks, with straw wound about their legs, and hoods, Jews’ caps, or mats on their heads; nearly all cursed Napoleon, emitted volleys of blasphemies, and, calling upon Death in their despair, bared their breasts and fell under his inexorable scythe.
Kutuzov’s Policy
Kutuzov, who had reduced Napoleon to this horrible situation, and who, by means of his flying squadrons, was kept aware of his every step, had succeeded in hiding all his own movements. Napoleon believed, as we see by the orders he gave his marshals, that Kutuzov was not marching parallel with the French army, but behind it; and yet Kutuzov continued his side movement round Smolensk, daily receiving reports of defeats of the enemy.
Already, between Moscow and Smolensk, one hundred pieces of cannon had been taken from the French and 10,000 men made prisoners. In congratulating the army on its successes, Kutuzov said in an order of the day: “After the brilliant success which we obtain every day and everywhere over the enemy, it only remains for us to pursue him speedily, and perhaps the soil of that Russia which he sought to subjugate will enclose all his bones within her breast; let us then pursue him without pause. Winter declares itself, the frost increases, the snow is blinding. Is it for you, children of the North, to fear all these harsh inclemencies? Your iron breasts resist them as they resist the rage of enemies. They are the ramparts, the hope of our country, against which everything is broken. If momentary privations should make themselves felt, you will know how to support them. True soldiers are distinguished by patience and courage. The old will set an example to the young. Let all remember Suvarov; he taught us to endure hunger and cold where victory and the honour of the Russian people were concerned. Forward, march! God is with us! The beaten enemy precedes us; may calm and tranquillity be restored behind us.”[i]
Kutuzov did not allow himself to be tempted by the disastrous position of his adversary and remained faithful to the cautious policy he had adopted, sparing as far as possible the troops entrusted to him. He never once altered his ruling idea, and remained true to it until the very end of the campaign. To those who were in favour of more energetic measures he replied: “Our young folks are angry with me for restraining their outbursts. They should take into consideration that circumstances will do far more for us by themselves than our arms.” Kutuzov’s indecision at Viazma and Krasnoi, Tchitchagov’s mistakes, and Count Wittgenstein’s caution, however, gave Napoleon’s genius the possibility of triumphing with fresh brilliancy over the unprecedented misfortunes that pursued him: on the 14th of November began the passage of the French across the Beresina at Stondianka, and then the pitiful remains of the grande armée, amounting to nine thousand men, hurriedly moved, or it would be more correct to say fled to Vilna, closely pursued by the Russian forces. The frost, which had reached thirty degrees, completed the destruction of the enemy; the whole route was strewn with the bodies of those who had perished from cold and hunger. Seeing the destruction of his troops and the necessity of creating a fresh army in order to continue the struggle, Napoleon wrote from Molodechno on the 21st of November his twenty-ninth bulletin, by which he informed Europe of the lamentable issue of the war, begun six months previously, and after transferring the command of the army to the king of Naples, Murat, he left Smorgoni for Paris on the 23rd of November.