When the plain was attained, Napoleon saw on the front, and barring the road to Kalouga, Koutousoff, strongly posted with upwards of 100,000 men, and on the right, Platoff and 6000 Cossacks, with artillery. To this belonged the pulk which he had just encountered, and who were returning from the flanks of his line, loaded with booty, while others seemed to meditate a similar attack. He returned to his miserable headquarters, after having finished his reconnoitring party.
RETREAT ON VEREIA.
A second council of war was held, in which Buonaparte, having heard the conflicting opinions of Murat, who gave his advice for attacking Koutousoff, and of Davoust, who considered the position of the Russian general as one which, covering a long succession of defiles, might be defended inch by inch, at length found himself obliged to decide between the angry chiefs, and with a grief which seemed to deprive him of his senses for a little while, gave the unusual orders—to retreat.[187] Buonaparte's own personal experience had convinced him how much, in advancing, his flanks would be exposed to the Hettman and his Cossacks, who had mustered in great force in the neighbourhood of Medyn. Other intelligence informed him that his rear had been attacked by another body of Cossacks coming from Twer, and who belonged not to Koutousoff's army, but to another Russian division under the command of Winzengerode, which was advancing from the northward to re-occupy Moscow. This showed that the communications of the French were at the enemy's mercy on the west and the north, on flank and in rear, and seems to have determined the Emperor to give at length, and most reluctantly, the orders to retreat, for the purpose of returning to the frontiers by Vereia and Wiazma, the same road by which they had advanced.
It was very seldom that Napoleon resigned the settled purpose of his own mind, either to the advice of those around him, or to any combination of opposing circumstances. He usually received any objection founded on the difficulty of executing his orders, with an evasive answer, "Ah, on ne peut pas!" which, from the sarcastic mode in which he uttered the words, plainly showed that he imputed the alleged impossibility to the imbecility of the officer who used the apology. It might have been better for Napoleon, in many instances, had he somewhat abated this pertinacity of disposition; and yet it happened, that by yielding with unwonted docility to the advice of his generals upon the present occasion, he actually retreated at the very moment when the grand Russian army were withdrawing from the position in which Davoust had pronounced them unassailable. The reason of this retrograde movement, which involved the most serious risk, and which, had Napoleon been aware of it, might have yielded him access to the most fertile and unharassed provinces of Russia, was said to be Koutousoff's fears that the French, moving from their right flank, might have marched round the Russian army by the way of Medyn. The truth seems to be, that Koutousoff, though placed in command of the grand army, in order to indulge the soldiers with a general action, was slow and cautious by nature, and rendered more so by his advanced age. He forgot, that in war, to gain brilliant results, or even to prevent great reverses, some risks must be run; and having received just praise for his practised and cautious movements from the battle of Borodino till that of Malo-Yarowslavetz, he now carried the qualities of prudence and circumspection to the extreme, and shunned a general action, or rather the hazard of a general attack from the French, when he might certainly have trusted, first, in the chance (which turned out the reality) of Buonaparte's retreat; secondly, in the courage of his troops, and the strength of his position. "But Fortune," says Tacitus, "has the chief influence on warlike events;" and she so ordered it, that both the hostile armies retired at once. So that while Buonaparte retreated towards Borowsk and Vereia, the route by which he had advanced, the Russians were leaving open before him the road to Kalouga, to gain which he had fought, and fought in vain, the bloody battle of Malo-Yarowslavetz. Favoured, however, by their immense clouds of light cavalry, the Russians learned the retrograde movement of Napoleon long before he could have any certain knowledge of theirs; and in consequence, manœuvred from their left so as to approach the points of Wiazma and Gjatz, by which the French must needs pass, if they meant to march on Smolensk.
WINZENGERODE MADE PRISONER.
At Vereia, where Napoleon had his headquarters on the 27th October, he had the satisfaction to meet with Mortier, and that part of the Young Guard which had garrisoned the Kremlin. They brought with them an important prisoner, whom chance, or rather his own imprudence, had thrown into their hands. We have said incidentally, that upon the French army evacuating Moscow, Winzengerode, with a considerable body of forces, advanced upon the Twer to regain possession of the city. All was vacant and silent except where the French garrison lay, deserted and moody in the Kremlin, with a few detached outposts. Winzengerode, with a single aide-de-camp, rode imprudently forward, and both were seized by the French soldiers. The general waved a white handkerchief, and claimed the privilege of a flag of truce, alleging that he came to summon the French marshal to surrender. But Mortier refused him the privilege he claimed, observing, plausibly, that it was not the custom of general officers to summon garrisons in person.
Before leaving Moscow, the French, by the especial command of Napoleon, prepared to blow up the ancient palace of the Czars. As the Kremlin was totally useless as a fortification, even if Napoleon could have hoped ever to return to Moscow as a victor, this act of wanton mischief can only be imputed to a desire to do something personally displeasing to Alexander, because he had been found to possess a firmer character than his former friend had anticipated.[188] The mode of executing this mandate, which, however, should be probably ascribed to the engineers, was a piece of additional barbarity. Aware that some of the Russians who were left behind, men of the lowest rank and habits, would crowd in to plunder the palace when the French retreated, they attached long slow-matches to the gunpowder which was stored in the vaults of the palace, and lighted them when the rear of the French column marched out. The French were but at a short distance, when the explosion took place, which laid a considerable part of the Kremlin in ruins, and destroyed at the same time, in mere wantonness, a number of wretches, whom curiosity or love of plunder had, as was anticipated, induced to crowd within the palace.[189] The Russian troops poured in, destroyed the mines which had not yet exploded, and extinguished the fire which had already caught the building. The patriotic foresight of the Russian peasants was now made manifest. We have mentioned the extreme wants of the French in the desolate city. No sooner was the Russian flag hoisted, than these wants vanished, as if by magic. Eighteen hundred cars, loaded with bread, poured in from the neighbourhood, on the very day that saw Moscow re-occupied. The bread, and the mode of conveying it, had been in secret prepared by these rustic patriots.
We return to the movements of the French army.
The dreadful explosion of the Kremlin shook the ground like an earthquake, and announced to Napoleon, then on his march against Koutousoff, that his commands had been obeyed. On the next day, a bulletin announced in a triumphant tone that the Kremlin, coeval with the Russian monarchy, had existed; and that Moscow was now but an impure laystall, while "the 200,000 persons which once formed her population, wandered through the forests, subsisting on wild roots, or perishing for want of them." With yet more audacity, the same official annunciation represents the retreat of the French as an advance on the road to victory. "The army expects to be put in motion on the 24th, to gain the Dwina, and to assume a position which will place it eighty leagues nearer to St. Petersburgh, and to Wilna; a double advantage, since it will bring us nearer the mark we aim at, and the means by which it may be accomplished."[190] While such splendid figments were circulated for the satisfaction of the people of Paris, the real question was, not whether the French were to approach St. Petersburgh, but by what means they were to get out of Russia with the semblance of an army remaining together.
Napoleon's spirit was observed to be soured by the result of the affair at Malo-Yarowslavetz. It was indeed an operation of the last consequence, since it compelled a broken and suffering army to retreat through a country already wasted by their own advance, and by the acts of the Russians, where the houses were burnt, the inhabitants fled, and the roads broken up, instead of taking the road by Kalouga, through a region which offered both the means of subsistence and shelter. When the advanced season of the year was considered, it might be said that the retreat upon Vereia sounded the death-knell of the French army. These melancholy considerations did not escape Buonaparte himself, though he endeavoured to disguise them from others, by asserting, in a bulletin dated from Borowsk, that the country around was extremely rich, might be compared to the best parts of France and Germany, and that the weather reminded the troops of the sun and the delicious climate of Fontainbleau.[191] His temper was visibly altered. Among other modes of venting his displeasure, he bitterly upbraided his prisoner Winzengerode, who was then brought before him.—"Who are you?" he exclaimed[192]—"A man without a country!—You have ever been my enemy—You were in the Austrian ranks when I fought against them—I have become Austria's friend, and I find you in those of Russia—You have been a warm instigator of the war; nevertheless, you are a native of the Confederation of the Rhine—you are my subject—you are a rebel—Seize on him, gendarmes!—Let him be brought to trial!"[193]