For this effort he proceeded, as well as circumstances would admit, to re-organise his army. It was reduced to about 40,000 men, with a disproportioned train of baggage and of artillery, although much of the former, and three hundred and fifty cannon, had already been left behind. This force the Emperor divided into four corps, which were to leave Smolensk, placing a day's interval betwixt the march of each. He himself led the van, with 6000 of his Guard, and about as many soldiers, the relics of different corps, amalgamated into battalions as well as circumstances would permit. The Emperor's division left Smolensk on the evening of the 13th and morning of the 14th November.
The division of the Viceroy Eugene, consisting of about the same number as that of Napoleon, but inferior in quality, as comprehending none of the Imperial Guard, could not be collected till late on the 15th November, when the wearied wretches were once more put into march, by promises of a safe arrival in that Lithuania, which so few of them were ever to see again.
On the 16th, Davoust, after some high words with Ney, who would have hurried his departure, set out with another fourth part of the grand army, approaching to, or exceeding 10,000 men in number.
Ney remained till the 17th of November. As he had once more the perilous task of covering the retreat, which duty he had performed so admirably betwixt Wiazma and Smolensk, his division was fortified with about 4000 of the Imperial Guard, to whom, as better fed than the other troops, besides their high character as veterans, more could be trusted even in the most desperate circumstances. Ere the French left the town, they obeyed the strict commands of the Emperor, in blowing up the towers with which Smolensk was surrounded, that it might not again, as Napoleon expressed himself, form an obstacle to a French army. Such was the language of this extraordinary man, as if affecting to provide for re-entering into Russia, at a time when it was the only question whether he himself, or any individual of his army, should ever be able to leave the fatal country.—We must next attend to the motions of the Russians.
The general voice of the Russian army had demanded Prince Golitcheff Koutousoff, as a chief who would put an end to Barclay de Tolly's system of retreat, and oppose the invaders in a pitched battle. He had done so at Borodino, but it was his last effort of the kind. His character was naturally the reverse of enterprising. Age had increased his disposition to extreme prudence, and the success which attended his procrastinating and cautious measures, while stationed at Taroutino, in the neighbourhood of Moscow, had riveted him to his own system, of risking as little as possible. It was in vain pointed out to him, that the Russian troops were in high condition, and that against an enemy so utterly broken and dispirited as the French then were, every thing might be trusted to those brave soldiers, who had not shrunk from an equal conflict with the same troops when in their vigour; and who, if then worsted, had left the enemy very little to boast of, having insulted his camp, and occupied the field of battle, even on the very night of his victory. Could Suwarrow have been recalled from the dead, or even the noble Bagration (the god of the army, as his name signifies in Russian;) or had Barclay de Tolly, Bennigsen, or Miloradowitch, been permitted to act when the moment of action approached, it seems probable that Napoleon would have revisited the Kremlin, not as a conqueror but as a prisoner. But Koutousoff, trusting to the climate of Russia, was contented to let the French army decay under its influence. He had determined not to encounter the slightest risk, but to glean up the wreck of the elements, rather than anticipate their work by the sword. His general plan was to maintain himself on the flank of Napoleon's army, and from time to time to attack them by his vanguard, but by no means to enter into a general action. He surrounded their corps with Cossacks, who brought with them light field-guns mounted on sledges, which did infinite damage on points where the heavy French guns could not be easily pointed, so as to reply to them. This system may be traced in the preceding pages, and still more in those which are about to follow. It has been applauded by many competent judges, as gaining every thing without putting any thing in hazard; but it is ridiculed by others, and especially by the French, who acknowledge themselves obliged to the tardiness of Koutousoff, and the blunders of the Admiral Tchitchagoff, for the escape of the poor remnant of the grand army which was preserved, and especially for the personal safety of the Emperor himself. With these explanations we resume our melancholy and momentous story.[205]
KRASNOI.
Without any purpose of departing from his maxims of caution, Koutousoff commenced the attack on the retreating army by a movement which appeared to indicate a more vigorous plan of procedure. He put his army in motion towards Krasnoi, upon a parallel line with that of Buonaparte, moving on the left flank of the French, so as to place Napoleon's line of advance at his mercy, whenever he should think proper to assail it. At the same time, he detached several large bodies to operate on the march of the enemy's column.
Miloradowitch, with a large vanguard, pushed forward upon the high-road leading from Smolensk to Krasnoi. Buonaparte had already reached the latter point, at the head of his division, but Eugene, who brought up the rear of the column, was effectually cut off. They were summoned to lay down their arms, but the viceroy manfully rejected the proposal. Immediately each surrounding hill poured forth, like a volcano, a torrent of fire upon them. The French and Italians maintained their ground with unavailing bravery. Numbers were killed, others made prisoners, and the division almost entirely destroyed.
Still the viceroy made his defence good, till night, the friend of the overmatched, approached to protect him; when, at the head of his division, diminished to one half, he quitted the high-road, leaving his fires burning to mislead the enemy, and, gaining the open fields, accomplished, with great loss and ineffable fatigue, his junction with Napoleon at Krasnoi, which he reached by a circuitous route. The challenge of a sentinel during this delicate manœuvre might have been utter destruction—and in fact they did encounter such a challenge. They were saved from the consequences by a ready-witted Pole, who, answering the sentinel in Russian, imposed silence on him, pretending that they were the corps of Owaroff, employed upon a secret expedition.
At length, upon the next morning (17th November,) Eugene reached the headquarters of his father-in-law, who had been very anxious on his account. When the diminished division of Eugene was united to that of the Emperor, they did not exceed 15,000 men in total amount. Yet on being joined by Eugene, the active genius of Napoleon, in these most disadvantageous circumstances, displayed its ascendency. He had caused General Roguet, with a detachment of the Young Guard, in the night between the 15th and 16th, to beat up the quarters of a Russian detachment, which approached his own too closely; and having thus taught the hunters to respect the lair of the lion, he embraced the audacious resolution of remaining at Krasnoi in defiance of the Russian army, till the detachments of Davoust and Ney should again join him. Whatever had been his reasons for separating from these divisions, he now saw the necessity of once more uniting his forces.