This unparalleled court was dismissed on May twenty-eighth, the Empress returning by way of Prague to Paris, Napoleon hastening by Posen and Warsaw to Thorn. The Poles were exuberant in their delight; they little knew that their supposed liberator had bargained away Galicia to Francis in return for Austrian support. For this betrayal, and his general contempt of the Poles, he was to pay dearly. Had he labored sincerely to organize a strong nucleus of Polish nationality, a coalition of Russia, Prussia, and Austria such as finally overwhelmed him would have been difficult, perhaps impossible. But the founder of an imperial dynasty could not trust a Polish democracy. When the Diet, sitting at Warsaw, besought him to declare the existence of Poland, he criticized the taste which made them compose their address in French instead of Polish, and gave a further inkling of his temper by sending his Austrian contingent to serve in Volhynia, so that neither French nor Polish enthusiasm might rouse the Russian Poles. When he reached Vilna he found that the impassive Lithuanians had no intention of rising against Russia, and no attempt was made to rouse them. If, as appears, his first intention had been to wage a frontier campaign, that plan was quickly changed. Retaining Venice and Triest for use against the Orient, with Austria virtually a member of his system, he determined to force Russia back on to the confines of Europe, perhaps into Asia, and then—Who can say? It seems as if Poland was to have been divided into French departments instead of being erected into another troublesome nation, vassal state, or semi-autonomous power.
At the opening of the Russian campaign the gradual change which had been steadily going on in Napoleon's physique was complete. He was now plethoric, and slow in all his movements. Occasionally there were exhibitions of quickened sensibility, which have been interpreted as symptoms of an irregular epilepsy; but in general his senses, like his expression, were dull. He had premonitions of a painful disease (dysuria), which soon developed fully. His lassitude was noticeable, and when he roused himself it was often for trivialities. In other campaigns he had stolen away from Paris in military simplicity; this time he had brought the pomp of a court. He planned, too, to bring theater companies and opera troupes to the very seat of war. Above all, he was deeply concerned with his imperial state, having in his trunks the baubles and dress he had worn at his coronation in Notre Dame. His bearing was proud, but there was no sparkle in his eye; he seemed spiritless and ailing; he showed no confidence in his magnificent army.
The haughty, exacting mien of 1812 was very different from the half-jocular, half-sarcastic curl of the lip and sparkle of the eye which had inspired his followers in former days quite as much as his stirring, incisive harangues. Yet careful study will prove that his sagacity as a great captain was in no way dimmed; his military combinations were greater than any he had ever formed. As no parallel to the numbers engaged in this enterprise can be found in European story, nothing comparable to its organization can be found in the history of any land or age. Every corps had its ammunition-train, and great reserves of supplies were stored in Modlin, Thorn, Pillau, Dantzic, and Magdeburg. In the two last-named arsenals were siege-trains for beleaguering Dünaburg and Riga. There were pontoons and bridge material in abundance; one thousand three hundred and fifty field-pieces, and eighteen thousand horses to draw them. The commissary stores were prodigious, and there were thousands of ox-wagons to transport them. The cattle were eventually to be slaughtered and eaten. In various convenient strongholds there were, besides, stores for four hundred thousand men for fifty days. Knowing Russia, he had prepared to conquer streams and morasses, to feed the army without fear of a devastating population, and to trust the seat of war for nothing except forage. His strategic plan was amazing, containing, as it did, the old elements of unexpected concentration, of breaking through the opposing line, of conclusive victory, and occupation of the enemy's capital. It was carried also to successful completion, and in one respect the execution was fine. The obstacles to be surmounted made every movement slow, and while a vast, complicated military organization may be reliable for weeks, to make it work for months requires qualities of greatness which increase in geometrical ratio according to the extension of time. Twice Napoleon bared his inmost thought, once to Metternich in Dresden, once to Jomini at a dinner company in Vilna. The first season he intended to seize Minsk and Smolensk, winter there, and organize his conquests. If this should not produce a peace, he would advance in the following season into the heart of the country, and there await the Czar's surrender. To his army he issued an address as direct and ringing as that which had echoed sixteen years before across the plains of Lombardy. Its substance is that the second Polish war would bring the same renown to French arms as the first, but the peace would be such as should end forever the haughty interference of Russia in European affairs. It seemed to those who heard it as if Russia's hour had struck.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER XXVII.
The Invasion of Russia—Borodino.[42]
Success and Failure — The Struggle with Summer Heat — Napoleon at Vitebsk — The Russians Over-confident — The Fight at Smolensk — Technical Victory and Real Defeat — Napoleon's Fatal Decision — The Russians at Borodino — The Battle Array — Napoleon's Victory — Russian Efforts to Burn Moscow.
When Napoleon left Dresden his force was so disposed that the Russians could not tell whether he meant to strike from north or south, and accordingly they divided theirs, Barclay de Tolly, with a hundred and twenty-seven thousand men, standing before Vilna; Bagration, with sixty-six thousand, ensconcing himself behind the swamps of the upper Pripet in Volhynia. Barclay, hoping to strike a sharp, swift blow, and open the campaign with a moral victory, was soon convinced of the danger, and called in Bagration, who was to be replaced by an auxiliary force. But before the long Russian line could be drawn together Napoleon struck the first decisive blow. Disposing his army in echelon, with beautiful precision he suddenly turned against the enemy's right, crossed the Niemen, and seized Vilna. This turned the Russian flank, and Barclay fell back to the fortified camp which had been established at Drissa in order to cover St. Petersburg. If, then, Jerome's division had promptly advanced from Grodno, Bagration would have been cut off and annihilated. The plan failed, partly because Napoleon did not superintend its operation in person, partly because Davout did not coöperate with sufficient alertness, but chiefly through Jerome's ignorance, slowness, and self-assertion. Bagration turned back, and, descending the Dnieper, placed himself beyond pursuit. For a moment Napoleon contemplated a junction of Ney and Eugène against Barclay, but the former had pushed on to seize Dünaburg, and was out of reach. This scheme, like the other, came to naught; Bagration, by a long, painful detour, was able to establish communication with Drissa, and seemed likely to effect a junction with Barclay on the road to Smolensk. As in these movements both the Russian commanders had lost many men, there would be only a hundred and twenty thousand in their united force, a beggarly showing in view of the two years' preparation necessary to bring it together. Consternation reigned in the Russian camp. The Czar could raise no money, Drissa was painfully inadequate as a bulwark, and the people grew desperate. The nation attributed its sorry plight to the bad advice of the Czar's German counselors, and such was the demoralization at the capital that Alexander was compelled to hasten thither in order to avert complete disaster. In spite of his personal unpopularity, he met with considerable success. The nobility and burghers of both St. Petersburg and Moscow caught the war fever, opened their coffers, equipped a numerous militia, and by the end of July all Russia was hopeful and eager for battle.
This, too, was the earnest desire of Napoleon. The advance from the Vistula to the Niemen and from the Niemen to the Dwina had been successfully carried forward—but at what a cost! "Since we have crossed the Niemen," wrote the artist Adam, who was at the viceroy's headquarters, "the Emperor and his entire army are occupied by a single thought, a single hope, a single wish—the thought of a great battle." Men talked of a great battle as of a great festival. If the Russian army in its own territory shriveled as it did before the summer heat by sickness and desertion, it may be imagined how that of the French dwindled. Their terrible sufferings could be ended only by a battle. Heat, dust, and drought wrought havoc in their columns; the pitiless northern sun left men and animals with little resisting power; the flying inhabitants devastated their fields, the horses and oxen gorged themselves on the half-rotten thatch of the abandoned huts, and died by the wayside; the gasping soldiery had no food but flesh. Dysentery raged, and soldiers died like flies. For a time Saint-Cyr's Bavarian corps lost from eight to nine hundred men a day, and it was by no means a solitary exception. Such facts account for the dilatoriness of Napoleon's movements in part; for the rest, his imperial plans demanded that he should organize all the territories in his rear, and he gave himself the utmost pains to do so. Besides, he had never before had a task so heroic in all its dimensions, and every detail of military and political procedure required time and care in fullest measure, the more so when preparing for a decisive, uncommon battle.
Vitebsk and Smolensk occupy analogous positions on the rivers Dwina and Dnieper, the former of which is to the westward and flows north; the latter, farther inland, flows in the opposite direction into the very heart of Russia. Barclay had planned to await Bagration at Vitebsk, and Napoleon, arriving on July twenty-seventh, hoped for a decisive battle there. But Davout's movements drove Bagration farther eastward, and Barclay, instead of waiting, hurried to Smolensk, where the junction was effected. This compulsory pursuit had, as communications then were, thrown the extreme wings of Napoleon's army virtually out of reach, the Prussians being near Riga, and the Austrians in Volhynia. The long, thin line of his center must be, therefore, drawn in for safety; and since the character of the country had improved, he determined to concentrate near Vitebsk, and recuperate his troops in the comparatively pleasant land which environs that city. Both commander and officers were at first so disheartened that they contemplated remaining for the season, Murat alone remonstrating; but Napoleon said three years were necessary for the Russian war. Such counsels did not long prevail; with new strength came the old daring, and orders were sent both to Macdonald and the Prussians on the left, and to the Austrians under Schwarzenberg on the right, which were indicative of a great project. Napoleon's prestige among the Poles had in fact shrunk along with his army. The latter he could not recruit, but the former he must repair at any hazard; this could be done only by what he designated to Jomini as a "good battle." The success of the minor engagements to right and left, incident to concentration, was encouraging for such a speedy and overwhelming triumph.
The Russians at Smolensk were vainglorious at having outwitted Napoleon, and longed to fight. Barclay alone was uneasy, but, in deference to the prevalent sentiment, he advanced to offer battle, and on August ninth there was a skirmish between pickets. Napoleon at once set his army in motion, but as neither general was really well informed or prepared, Barclay pushed on to the right, and the two armies lost touch. Once aroused, the French spirit brooked no further delay, and it was determined to seek the "good battle" before Smolensk, which, lying on the right, or north, bank of the Dnieper, could be reached only by crossing the stream. This manœuver was brilliantly executed. Barclay was a day's march distant on the south bank when Ney and Murat deployed on the other side for action on August sixteenth. Bagration, nearer at hand, threw one corps across the river into the town, and then hurried his main force down-stream to oppose its passage by the French.