BAD NEWS FROM PARIS
Napoleon passing the night in a Russian château near Mikalevka, after receiving the news of General Malet’s conspiracy in Paris
From the painting by Verestchagin

NAPOLEON’S RUSSIAN
CAMPAIGN OF 1812

BY

EDWARD FOORD

AUTHOR OF “THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE”

ILLUSTRATED WITH THIRTY-TWO PORTRAITS
AND HISTORICAL PAINTINGS
AND SEVERAL MAPS AND PLANS

LONDON: HUTCHINSON AND CO.
PATERNOSTER ROW

1914

PREFACE

During recent years the history of most of Napoleon’s great campaigns has been given to the world, with the notable exception of that of the catastrophic Russian expedition of 1812. Apart from compilations, I have met only one original work on the subject, in the English language, during the ten years the present work has been in preparation.

The publication of thousands of documents dealing with the struggle from the French side by the Historical Section of the French War Office, has rendered easily accessible an immense mass of material for the earlier period of the campaign. A beginning in this respect has also been made by the War Office at St. Petersburg, and some interesting light is thereby thrown upon the preparations on the Russian side, as well as upon the personalities of the Russian leaders. There are also many documents from private sources which have been collected and published.

My aim has been simply to relate the history of the terrible campaign in straightforward fashion, without obscuring the narrative by too much digression. I believe that, as matters stand, a better service will thus have been rendered to the cause of history than by the composition of a huge essentially technical work—for which, indeed, there is no place in this country. At present, apart from the needs of soldiers—which they are better qualified to supply than myself—it is not so much scientific discussion of the campaign that is required as knowledge of its episodes. This I have conscientiously endeavoured to supply.

I have to express my obligations to Mr. F.J. Hudleston, of the Staff Library at the War Office, for permission to make researches among the works under his charge dealing with the campaign, as well as to his assistant, Mr. Baldry, for his kind help during my work there. I am indebted to Mr. Gordon Home for much invaluable assistance, which it is easier to name than to classify, since it extends to every part of the book.

E.F.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. [Bad News from Paris]
2. The Emperor Alexander I of Russia
3. [Prince Eugène, Son of the ex-Empress Josephine]
4. [Details of the Uniforms of the Infantry of the French Army in 1812]
5. [Marshal Davout]
6. [Prince Joseph Anthony Poniatowski, Nephew of Stanislaus Augustus, the last King of Poland]
7. [Field-Marshal Prince Barclay de Tolly]
8. [Field-Marshal Prince Golénischev-Kutuzov]
9. [General Prince Bagration, Commander of the Second Russian Army in 1812]
10. [Joachim Murat, King of Naples]
11. [The Old Fortifications of Smolensk]
12. [Marshal Oudinot, Duke of Reggio]
13. [The First Battle of Polotsk]
14. [General of Cavalry Count Platov]
15. [Marshal Ney]
16. [Moscow from the Sparrow Hills]
17. [Napoleon’s First View of Moscow]
18. [Napoleon Watching the Burning of Moscow]
19. [The Kremlin, Moscow]
20. [Marshal Victor, Duke of Belluno]
21. [The Church of Vasilii Blagorennyi at Moscow]
22. [The Council of War after the Battle of Maloyaroslavetz]
23. [Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr]
24. [Count Wittgenstein]
25. [Armed Russian Peasants in Ambush in the Woods waiting to cut off French Stragglers]
26. [The Retreat of the French from Moscow]
27. [Russian Grenadiers Pursuing the French Army]
28. [Napoleon, Berthier, Murat, and Rapp (in the order named) round camp fire]
29. [General Baron Eblé]
30. [Crossing the Berezina]
31. [Marshal Ney Supporting the Rear-guard during the Retreat from Moscow]
32. [Napoleon’s Travelling Kitchen]

MAPS AND PLANS

[Plan of Battle of Saltanovka]
[“ ” Smolensk]
[” ” Lubino]
[” ” Gorodeczna]
[” ” Borodino]
[” ” Vinkovo]
[” ” Maloyaroslavetz]
[” ” Polotsk (2nd)]
[” Order of French Retreat, October 31]
[” Battle of Viasma]
[” ” Krasnoï]
[” Passage of the Berezina]
[” Battle of Polotsk (1st)]
[Map of Theatre of War, showing positions of opposing forces at opening of campaign and movements on both sides up to occupation of Moscow (folding, at end of volume)]
[Map of Theatre of War, showing positions of opposing forces at the evacuation of Moscow and movements on both sides to the end of the campaign (folding, at end of volume)]

NAPOLEON’S
RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN OF 1812

[CHAPTER I]

THE PRELIMINARIES

The Russian Campaign of 1812 was the last and greatest of Napoleon’s efforts to impose his dominion upon Continental Europe; and it resulted in perhaps the most tremendous overthrow that any world-conqueror has ever sustained. A review of the immediate causes of the mighty struggle is necessary and not without interest, but it is difficult, as one studies Napoleon’s character, to resist the conclusion that it was inevitable. The career of the Corsican adventurer whom genius and good fortune had made Emperor of France, resembles the fateful development of a Greek tragedy. By 1812 his pride had reached its height. Whatever set itself in opposition to his will must be trodden under foot. Russia, impelled partly by a natural sense of independence, partly by economic causes, made up her mind to resist him, and the consequence was an attack upon her by the tyrant of south-western Europe.

The effects of the Continental system varied in different parts of Europe, but everywhere they were bad. France, wealthy in herself, and with the material advantage of being able to maintain her overgrown armies at free quarters in foreign countries, felt them least—a fact which probably accounts for Napoleon’s long continuance in power. Elsewhere the pressure was cruel, especially in Sweden, which practically depended for economic existence upon her sea-borne commerce. Russia, though self-supporting as regards food supplies, also suffered materially from the cessation of her trade with Great Britain; and the classes which felt the pressure most were those of the nobles and merchants, which embodied and voiced such public opinion as existed in the country. There was also in Russia a healthy sense of independence, coupled with a feeling of possessing such strength as made destruction, at the hands even of Napoleon, impossible. Such opinions were certain to penetrate sooner or later to the Tzar and his advisers; and, in spite of much irresolution and diversity of views, they could not fail to exercise considerable influence. Besides, the commencement of a new independent Poland, in the shape of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, established by Napoleon on the western frontier of Russia, was an ever-present source of anger and uneasiness. The Grand Duchy was, to all intents and purposes, a military camp, a sort of French advanced guard against Russia. Within its bounds everything was subordinated to military organisation, and its large army, organised and trained on French principles, and with French aid, was a very real menace.

Napoleon’s political marriage with Maria Louisa of Austria, at a moment when he was ostensibly negotiating for the hand of Alexander’s sister, added to the Tzar’s sense of his people’s sufferings and his empire’s danger a feeling of personal injury. Next year this was aggravated by Napoleon’s abrupt annexation of the coast-lands of north-west Germany, including Oldenburg, whose ruler was Alexander’s brother-in-law. In the beginning of 1811 the Tzar issued a commercial decree which virtually prohibited various French imports into Russia, and also permitted the import of Colonial goods under a neutral flag. The measure must, of course, have been under consideration for some time, and Russia’s financial straits amply account for it, but coming as it did on the heels of Alexander’s protests against the seizure of Oldenburg, it enraged Napoleon. In a letter to the King of Württemberg he described it as a declaration of hostility, and, since any movement in the direction of independence inevitably called down his furious wrath, he was probably right.

At the same time these events were scarcely the cause of hostilities—they merely hastened them. Whatever diplomacy might do, neither Napoleon nor Alexander had any belief in the permanence of the truce which had been called in 1807. Soon after his second marriage Napoleon had observed to Metternich that war with Russia was in the nature of things. The retention of strong garrisons in the Prussian fortresses on the Oder, the steady increase in the forces of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and the continued occupation of Danzig, almost on the Russian frontier, were measures which can hardly be regarded as directed otherwise than against Russia. Moreover, besides the troops of Napoleon’s German vassals, an army of 100,000 Frenchmen occupied Germany. It is absurd to suggest, in the face of all this, that war was forced upon Napoleon by Russia—except, of course, in so far as independent action of any kind always challenged his hostility.

Whatever Alexander’s personal feelings might be—and there is no doubt that he was to some extent fascinated by the French Emperor’s personality—he was gradually forced into the conviction that peace was impossible. In 1810 he appointed as War-Minister General Barclay de Tolly, an officer who had greatly distinguished himself in the French and Swedish wars; and the reorganisation of the Russian forces was energetically proceeded with. Count Arakcheiev, Alexander’s harsh and brutal, but undoubtedly industrious and energetic, minister, had already done much, especially in the direction of improving the arsenals and reserves of arms. Barclay’s measures were steadily directed to preparing for a war on the western frontier. The country was surveyed, roads examined and improved, magazines formed, fortifications planned and begun, and, above all, troops steadily concentrated. Progress was, however, slow. Apart from the backward state of the country as a whole, divided counsels in the Imperial Cabinet, the poverty of the exchequer, and the strain of the long and by no means successful Turkish war, it was necessary to proceed cautiously, for fear of provoking Napoleon too soon into offensive action.

The preparations were, in fact, entirely defensive in character, and appear very modest beside Napoleon’s vast armaments and fortifications on territory which was not his own. The Russian ministers, indeed, appear to have been generally rather over-confident of their country’s ability to resist a French invasion. Some of them, at any rate, wished to take up arms in 1811, counting on the support of Austria and Prussia. They pointed out that Napoleon would calculate upon Russia’s steady weakening owing to loss of trade, and that therefore speedy action was desirable. The Grand Chancellor, Count Rumiantzev, was a strong partisan of the French alliance. Alexander himself, though determined to stand firm against aggression, was not anxious for war, and apparently hoped that it might be avoided—as indeed it might have been, but for the fact that peace with England, which was desired by, and necessary to, Russia, implied from Napoleon’s standpoint war with France. The impression which the Russian Government generally conveyed in foreign countries was one of great irresolution.

This impression was indeed somewhat erroneous. The war-party in Russia was by far the larger of the two into which public opinion was naturally divided, since it included nearly everyone whose interests were adversely affected by the Continental system—in other words, the majority of the nobles and merchants. It was, however, divided, comprising a narrowly patriotic section which looked merely to the preservation of Russian territory, and another, naturally smaller, consisting of men who saw more or less clearly that to ensure European peace Napoleon must be not merely repelled, but crushed once and for all. The peace-party though small was very influential, including the Chancellor Rumiantzev, Alexander’s own mother, and his brother Constantine.

Ultimately, of course, everything depended upon the character of the Tzar, and this was such as to give the friends of France great hopes of being able to influence him. Alexander was essentially a dreamer, much under the influence of vaguely exalted aspirations which were terribly contrasted with the mass of selfishness, luxury, and brutality which environed and repelled him. He was impulsive rather than calmly and steadily determined, and both at Tilsit and Erfurt Napoleon had dominated him. Probably he hoped to do so again. He was bitterly disappointed, and his vexation inspired the libellous remarks upon Alexander’s character which occasionally pass for serious history. Alexander I was neither a great statesman, a great general, nor a hero. He was, as far as we can see him, a kindly and well-meaning man, somewhat dreamy and irresolute in general, called by an inscrutable providence to rule, from the midst of a luxurious Court and through a corrupt bureaucracy, a very backward and undeveloped realm. He was often shocked by the conditions about him, but lacked the moral courage to suppress them. But, like many other dreamers, he could at times rise to the occasion. He was intellectual enough to act both as general and statesman, by no means with discredit in either case, and morally elevated enough to play, in 1812, something at any rate of the part of a hero.

Nevertheless, Alexander was naturally slow in finally forming his resolution to fight to the death, and the causes here detailed made preparations for war also tardy. As it was, however, they were quickly detected by Napoleon, and used by him as the grounds for diplomatic protests and for pushing forward his own armaments.

Barclay’s preparations, in brief, included the increase of the number of the regiments of the Russian army, the completion to war strength of two battalions per infantry, and four squadrons per cavalry, regiment; the organisation of depôts to complete the third battalions and fifth squadrons with all speed, and the concentration on the western frontier of all available forces—ultimately including 9 army corps, 2 independent divisions, 5 reserve cavalry “corps,” and 3 corps of irregular horse. Information concerning the state of Napoleon’s forces, especially in Germany and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, was carefully collected, and the possible theatre of war studied and surveyed. The fortifications carried out had a purely defensive character, and cannot be for a moment compared with Napoleon’s constant provocative preparations in Germany and Poland. Riga was fortified, and fortifications were projected at Dünaburg, where the St. Petersburg-Vilna road crossed the Düna. Other works were planned at Borisov on the Berezina, where the river is crossed by the Moscow-Warsaw high-road. Kiev, the famous old Russian city on the Dnieper, was also fortified, as was Bobruisk on the Berezina. A glance at the map will show how absolutely defensive these fortifications were. Riga is 150 miles from the frontier, and all the other places much farther back. As a fact some of them were not completed, hardly even begun, when war broke out.

These preparations were due in their inception to Barclay, but there were others which were inspired by the unpractical advisers immediately about the Tzar. Wellington’s Torres Vedras campaign had made a great sensation in Europe, and General Phull, Alexander’s Prussian instructor and adviser, had projected a great entrenched camp at Drissa, a town that was literally nowhere. It covered nothing; it was hardly even tactically well placed. It is a striking indication of the confusion in the Russian councils that, practically behind the back of the War-Minister who was nominally responsible for military preparations, a vast amount of time and labour was wasted on this pretentious and unprofitable camp of refuge. In a sentence, Drissa was absolutely useless. Yet the man who conceived this almost childish idea of drawing Napoleon against his will upon an arbitrarily placed entrenchment, and inducing him to waste time and lives before it, passed for a scientific soldier! The amount of time and labour expended on Drissa rendered all the other works slow in construction, and Dünaburg was hardly commenced when the war broke out.

Napoleon’s preparations were naturally influenced by no chimerical ideas—except in so far as he appeared inclined to renew in 1811 his old plan of an invasion by sea of England! All through 1810 and 1811 the arming and strengthening of German and Polish fortresses was continued, and the bulk of the disposable French troops were collected in three so-called corps of observation in the northern provinces and in Germany. They numbered some 200,000 men. From Italy he could draw about 50,000 French and Italian troops. The contingents of his German vassals numbered nearly 130,000. The Grand Duchy of Warsaw could furnish some 50,000. Prussia was practically helpless, and Napoleon imposed upon her a treaty of alliance which required her to furnish 20,000 men, and subjected her to wholesale plunder by the Grande Armée on its passage through her territories. Napoleon was to make such requisitions as he pleased, and payment was to be arranged for them later! The misery caused, however, unfortunately for him, did not destroy Prussia, and only added to the heavy debt of vengeance soon to be paid. For the moment, however, Prussia had reached the depths of humiliation. Austria, though sorely humbled and distressed, was in a far more independent position; and Metternich’s address succeeded in concluding a treaty by which Austria was to be indemnified for any territorial losses that she might sustain by a reconstitution of Poland, and should furnish an auxiliary corps of about 30,000 men. There was, of course, no guarantee that Napoleon would keep the first condition, and in all probability he would never have done so had the contemplated events come to pass; but that he consented to it, even nominally, indicates that he was anxious to conciliate Austria. Austria, on her side, furnished to the Grande Armée some 40,000 men in all.

Having completed these arrangements Austria and Prussia promptly communicated them to Russia! Despite the grim seriousness of the situation, and the terrible drama which was soon to be acted, it is difficult not to see that Napoleon’s position was a somewhat ludicrous one. Austria gave Alexander full assurances that no attack should be made upon Russia by any but the auxiliary corps, and communicated to him the secret orders given to the troops in Galicia and Transylvania!

Poland—or the fraction of it represented by the Grand Duchy of Warsaw—was, naturally and necessarily, heart and soul with Napoleon. France had always been the model to which the Poles looked up; and since the Partition they regarded France as their natural helper. They had fought in the French ranks in large numbers during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, and there was undoubtedly much sympathy of a kind felt for them in France. Farther than this feeling did not go. The chivalry with which the French national character is credited by its admirers certainly does not appear in history. French diplomatic annals are to the full as soiled as those of other countries, and French soldiers have usually been ruthless interpreters or breakers of the rules of war. And most certainly the natural instincts of the French people are essentially material. In so far as Poland was useful to France, France was very ready to sympathise with her. Otherwise the general opinion of the Poles, later expressed by the poet Gaszinski, is that they have obtained from France only tears!

Napoleon was, of course, fully alive to the advantages to be reaped from Polish enthusiasm and aspirations. Besides the army of Warsaw he brought up to the front all his own Polish regiments so as to give his operations as far as possible the appearance of a war for the restoration of Polish independence. Eventually in 1812 he sent De Pradt to Warsaw to organise the movement against Russia. He gave him detailed instructions as to how he was to carry out his orders, and it is hardly possible to read them without feelings of indignation against the man who ruthlessly traded upon the aspirations of a brave and patriotic people, and of pity for the people themselves. The ambassador himself was very conscious of the ignominious part which he was called upon to play. To all appearance he did his work well; certainly the poverty-stricken and requisition-wasted Grand Duchy raised a very large force for the campaign. Napoleon, however, chose later to be dissatisfied; and at St. Helena violently attacked De Pradt, as a chief cause of his defeat—a statement which may fairly be included in the mass of falsehoods which Napoleon emitted during his captivity.

On January 27th, 1812, Napoleon issued to his German vassals a declaration of his complaints against Russia, and required them to have their contingents ready by the 15th of February. The Army of Italy was ordered to march into Germany, and the King of Bavaria to clear the roads of snow and to supply it during its march through his territory. The troops were to live at free quarters; if they were not supplied with all that they required they were to take it! Anyone insulting a French soldier was to be court-martialled, and the sentences of prejudiced and often brutalised judges may be imagined. It is, of course, needless to add that both these orders were suppressed by the editors of Napoleon’s correspondence. In order to extract additional supplies the Army of Italy was stated at 80,000 strong, its actual numbers being about 45,000. When Napoleon’s allies were thus oppressed, one may imagine the misery in Prussia, which was treated as a conquered country.

All this time Napoleon and Alexander were negotiating, though with small chance of a peaceful result. Alexander desired peace, but would not surrender his independence: Napoleon required complete submission. Alexander sent his aide-de-camp, Colonel Chernishev, on a special mission to Paris, while at St. Petersburg the French Ambassador, Caulaincourt, was replaced by General Lauriston. Early in 1812 Napoleon induced the King of Prussia to send a special envoy to St. Petersburg, with the suggestion that Alexander might make fresh proposals. Alexander made a dignified reply: he had, he said, shown his strong desire for peace by keeping silent upon the subject of Napoleon’s annexations: at the same time he was willing to hear what explanations France might have to offer. None were made, and French troops continued to flood across Germany. Napoleon believed that the Russian preparations were more advanced than they actually were—this is fairly apparent from his military correspondence—and was anxious to gain time. In April Alexander sent to Prince Kurakin, his ambassador at Paris, final instructions. He was to propose that Prussia be fully evacuated by the French, thus leaving a neutral space between the contending powers. Russia would then be ready to satisfy France—or Napoleon—on commercial questions. It can hardly be doubted that, come what might, Alexander did not intend entirely to return to the Continental system, and so far Napoleon was probably right in deeming the proposal a diplomatic move to gain time. He made no reply, but despatched Count Narbonne on a shadowy mission to Alexander at Vilna, and kept Kurakin, with studied insolence, waiting. The ambassador pressed repeatedly for a reply, but received none until nearly three weeks later. Then he was merely asked if he had full powers to treat! He rightly regarded such treatment as a gratuitous insult, and demanded his passports. Narbonne’s mission naturally led to nothing, except that he obtained a better idea than Napoleon of the stern determination of the erstwhile soft and yielding Tzar.

Alexander, on his side, was endeavouring to free his hands for the approaching struggle. The result of the Treaty of Tilsit had been the long and harassing war with Turkey; and Russia paid dearly for the blunder into which Napoleon’s blandishments had led her. Negotiations for peace were very slow, and steadily opposed and hampered by the French ambassador at Constantinople. Peace was not signed at Bukharest until May, 1812, and even then French influence was still so powerful that there was fear that it would be broken by Turkey. It was not until August that the bulk of the Army of the Danube at last started from Bukharest under Admiral Chichagov, and by that time Napoleon was already on the line of the Düna and the Dnieper. As it happened the delay was fortunate for Russia, but it might easily have been fatal.

Yet more important to Russia than peace with the Osmanli Empire was peace with Great Britain, but in order to keep the gate of conciliation open for Napoleon until the last moment formal negotiations were not commenced until April, 1812. In point of fact, though the two powers were nominally at war, and the British fleet was blockading the Russian ports, there was a very good feeling between them. Through the Spanish envoy Zea Bermudez, Lord Wellesley had in 1811 assured Alexander that Britain was not really hostile, and Alexander in turn had promised Bermudez that he would keep his troops on the Polish frontier, so as to ensure that the suspicious French Emperor would not move more troops from Germany into Spain. Admiral de Saumarez, the fine seaman and excellent diplomatist who commanded the British Baltic fleet, handled the situation with unerring tact and skill, and effectively ensured the doing of nothing which might destroy the comparatively friendly relations which subsisted between the two nominally hostile states. All this is doubly interesting, as proving the hopelessly fragile basis upon which Napoleon’s European domination rested.

Russia’s first overtures were somewhat clumsy and exorbitant in their demands. They suggested that since Russia was obviously about to render vital services to the common cause Britain should take over a loan of nearly £4,000,000 just raised by her. The refusal of the British Government to accede to this demand, in itself not inexcusable, but failing to recognise Britain’s own difficulties and the services which she was rendering, rather dashed the Russian Government, and the formal alliance was not concluded until July.

Finally, it may be noted that Napoleon, before entering upon hostilities, went through the time-honoured farce of making overtures of peace to Britain. It was purely a diplomatic move, and certainly not seriously intended, nor did the British Government regard it as being so. Britain was more confident than she had been for a long time. The French offensive in the Peninsula had very definitely reached its limit, and Wellington, by his capture of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, had taken the first steps in the great counter-attack which was eventually to roll the French back over the Pyrenees. Calm observers like Foy saw that the turn of the tide had come. It may be regarded as certain that terms of peace less unfavourable than those which Napoleon offered would hardly have been accepted.

Sweden, under the direction of Napoleon’s old enemy and restive servant, Bernadotte, also allied herself with Russia in April—an act immediately brought about by Napoleon’s arrogant seizure of Swedish Pomerania, but perhaps in the end inevitable. Sweden, however, partly owing to poverty, partly because of Britain’s unwillingness to abet Bernadotte’s designs on Norway, took no active share in the Continental war until 1813; but Russia was enabled to withdraw most of her troops from Finland for service against Napoleon.

Meanwhile the French and Russian preparations for war were actively pursued, though more rapidly and effectively by Napoleon than by his antagonist, who had to contend with far greater difficulties. On February 8th Napoleon ordered Prince Eugène with the Army of Italy and the Bavarians to advance upon Glogau, where they would arrive about April 1st. Davout’s six divisions were advanced stage by stage from the Elbe to the Vistula, while the 2nd Corps (Oudinot) and the 3rd (Ney) followed in support. The Poles (5th Corps) were concentrated on the Vistula about Warsaw, Modlin and Plock; and the Saxons (7th Corps) and Westphalians (8th Corps) directed also upon Warsaw. Two corps of cavalry reserves—22,000 lances and sabres—and gunners of horse artillery were in the north; a third, 10,000 strong, with Eugène; and a fourth, not yet completely formed, was to accompany the 5th, 7th and 8th Corps. The Prussian contingent was assembling at Königsberg, the Austrian at Lemberg. Finally the Imperial Guard, horse and foot, was advancing from Paris to form the general reserve. Over and above all these formations, which composed the actual army of invasion, various reserve divisions, French, Polish and German, were being organised, some of which were later combined into a 9th Army Corps under Marshal Victor. The refractory conscripts, who were being trained in their island prison-camps, were formed into fresh regiments of infantry. The conscripts of the year, who were collecting at the depôts, were organised as soon as sufficiently trained into Regiments de Marche which were pushed forward into and through Germany to feed the fighting line. Out of these an 11th Corps was formed, the composition of which was constantly changing as the advanced troops were pushed across the Russian frontier, to be replaced by others at the rearward stages, while these were in their turn relieved by new conscripts from France. A division of King Joachim’s Neapolitans was marching from Italy to form part of this great reserve corps. The King of Denmark also, at Napoleon’s request, concentrated a division of 10,000 troops in Holstein. Napoleon did not believe that Britain could seriously molest his rear owing to her preoccupation with the Peninsular War, but he took no risks. In March, 1812, a Senatus-Consultum formed the entire male population of the empire into three bans, and of the first ban, comprising men from twenty to twenty-six years of age, a hundred battalions or “cohorts” were immediately called out for home defence. They actually produced a force of about 80,000 men, who by June had received a fair amount of training. Apart from them there were left for the defence of the empire 2 regiments of the Young Guard, 24 line battalions in 8 regiments of infantry, 8 foreign battalions, 8 squadrons of cavalry and 48 batteries of artillery. There were also 156 3rd, 4th and 5th battalions of regiments already on foreign service, the seamen, marines, coast-guards and veterans, and finally the depôts of the whole army.

At the beginning of 1812, when Napoleon was preparing to concentrate on the Oder, the Russian forces, exclusive of the isolated armies of Turkey and Finland, lay dispersed in cantonments from Courland to Podolia, over a line of some six hundred miles. During March and April, as the French offensive on the Vistula became pronounced, Alexander drew in his scattered forces and organised them in two armies, calling up reinforcements from the Turkish frontier. The first army, under the War-Minister Barclay de Tolly, had its head-quarters at Vilna. The second, commanded by the fiery Georgian Prince Peter Bagration, was cantoned about Lutsk. Napoleon interpreted this to mean that Russia intended to invade the Grand Duchy of Warsaw with Bagration’s army, while Barclay covered the road to St. Petersburg. It is indeed probable, if not certain, that had their preparations been more forward the Russians would have attempted something of the kind; Bagration was eager to advance on Warsaw. The plans discussed at the Russian head-quarters all appear to be based upon the the hypothesis of being able to meet the French near the frontier on fairly equal terms. Napoleon’s overwhelming strength was not yet appreciated.

On April 17th Napoleon wrote to Davout, laying down the plan of action which he proposed in view of a Russian advance on Warsaw. The 60,000 men of the Saxon and Polish armies would, if possible, hold the line of the Vistula about Warsaw, but if overmatched must retreat on Glogau, where Davout would be able to come into line with them, while the main body of the Grand Army came up to the relief in two columns. He showed his confidence in his lieutenant by inviting him to examine and criticise the proposed plan.

At this date the French forces were approximately stationed as follows, left to right. The Prussians were about Königsberg, and Davout’s six infantry divisions and a cavalry corps between Danzig and Thorn, all these forming what General Bonnal calls the Strategic Advanced Guard, under Davout. The 5th Corps was between Plock and Warsaw, the 7th Corps near Kalisch, 140 miles west of Warsaw, the 8th Corps between Glogau and Kalisch. The Bavarians (6th Corps) were marching from Glogau to Posen; the Army of Italy (4th Corps) was spread out over 100 miles of road in rear of Glogau; Ney was with the 3rd Corps about Frankfort on the Oder, eighty miles north-west of Glogau, and Oudinot with the 2nd about Berlin. As Bagration at Lutsk was some 250 miles from Warsaw, a study of the map will show that an offensive movement on his part could be opposed by at least equal numbers (the 5th, 7th and 8th Corps) in any case, apart from the 4th and 6th, which could be diverted on Warsaw, while a mass of over 200,000 men (Davout, Prussians, 2nd Corps, 3rd Corps and 2 cavalry corps) could oppose Barclay, besides the Guard.

Towards the end of April Napoleon obtained fairly accurate information of the Russian emplacements. Six Army Corps and 3 divisions of reserve cavalry were extended from near Shavli in Courland to Slonim in Lithuania—a distance of nearly 250 miles. At Lutsk, over 200 miles from Slonim, and separated from it by the huge barrier of the Pinsk Marshes, were 2 Corps under Bagration, while slowly converging upon Lutsk were 5 divisions of infantry and 2 of cavalry. He could therefore calculate with sufficient certainty that his strategic deployment along the Vistula would not be interrupted. By May 15th the bulk of his forces were on the Vistula from Danzig to Warsaw. The Prussians were at Königsberg, the Austrians at Lemberg, the 4th Corps in reserve at Kalisch, the Imperial Guards marching in detachments across Germany. The whole mass, exclusive of non-combatants, amounted to nearly 450,000 men, of whom 80,000 were cavalry. It had with it, including its reserve parks, 1146 guns and howitzers, nearly 200,000 horses and draft animals, and probably 25,000 vehicles.

The extent of the suffering entailed by the passage of this gigantic host through Germany may be imagined. The mere supplying it with food was enough to exhaust the country, but it was but a part of what had to be endured. The peasants were robbed of horses, vehicles and implements for the service of the troops, and forced themselves to accompany the columns to drive their carts laden with baggage or their own plundered crops. Honourable men in the French army saw such proceedings with shame and regret. De Fezensac tells with ill-suppressed indignation how he met German peasants fifty leagues from their homes acting as baggage drivers, and adds that they were fortunate if they reached their villages in a state of beggary. Testimony such as this is invaluable and damning. Organised plunder was rampant, and the French officers, brutalised and morally degraded by years of war maintaining war, were reckless of the misery inflicted. The Prussian official Schön tells how Davout, on entering Gumbinnen and finding supplies in his opinion not adequate, owing to the abject poverty to which Prussia had been reduced, coolly ordered his troops to pillage the town! The 1st Corps was the best administered in the army; and Davout is commonly held up to admiration by French writers as the pattern of honour and loyalty. But his execution of orders was commonly ruthless, and there were in Napoleon’s army but too many officers who lacked even Davout’s very limited sense of honour. Davout would sack a town remorselessly, as readily as Suchet massacred women and children at Lerida; but Suchet would hang a man who committed murder, and Davout, while subjecting people to every kind of officially ordered oppression, would sternly check private plunder or outrage. But other generals were less strict, and the bad characters who are found in every army had opportunities of committing all kinds of outrages. Napoleon himself at last complained of the misconduct of Ney’s 3rd Corps. Ney was a worse disciplinarian than Davout, though a humane and kindly tempered man, but neither Ney nor Davout can really be blamed. The troops, by Napoleon’s order, were to be supplied at the expense of the country, and the usual discipline of the French army was so shattered by years of organised brigandage that the rest naturally followed. The terrible misery inflicted upon Germany and other countries by Napoleonic warfare may be studied at length in reports and despatches, and furnishes a very grim commentary upon the moral value of military discipline.

Napoleon left Paris on the 9th of May, accompanied by the Empress, and reached Dresden on the 16th, where all his unwilling or willing allies and vassals were gathered to meet him. The details of his stay—how kings waited in his antechamber, how he made presents to them, how queens waited upon Maria Louisa—need not be repeated. The episode was a memorable example of pride preceding a fall.

Napoleon was not impatient. He had already told Davout that he should not commence operations until the grass had grown in order that he might therewith supplement his stores of forage; and he did not leave Dresden until the 30th of May. On that day the whole army was concentrated between Königsberg and Warsaw; the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th Corps were all in line, and the Guard was collecting at Posen. Napoleon in his orders for the advance on the Niemen, on May 26th, contemplates the army as three masses: the right, consisting of the 5th, 7th and 8th Corps, under Jerome; the centre, of the 4th and 6th, under Eugène; and the left, of the Guard, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd, and the new 10th Corps (Davout’s foreign division and the Prussians) which he would conduct in person. Two Reserve Cavalry Corps were allotted to the left, one to the centre, and one to the right.

Meanwhile, on the Russian side, the Emperor Alexander had arrived at Vilna on April 26th. As Emperor he nominally had the chief command, but unfortunately his motley following of German princes and relatives, military adventurers and theorists, had much more to suggest than the harassed sovereign, who must at times have been almost in despair at being called upon to decide between them. There were lengthy discussions and much drafting of strategic schemes, few of them at all applicable to the situation and resulting in little but waste of time. Barclay was practically superseded by the Emperor’s following, and being naturally a man of diffident and retiring nature, and unused to supreme command, he did not sufficiently assert himself. Among the officers who appeared in Alexander’s suite was old General Bennigsen, who had commanded not without credit against Napoleon in 1807, and probably hoped to induce the Tzar to give him an important command.

PRINCE EUGÈNE
Son of the ex-Empress Josephine, Viceroy of Italy, and Commander of the 4th French Army Corps
From the picture by Scheffer at Versailles

By the beginning of June it was becoming clear that Napoleon’s attack would be delivered across the Niemen. Bagration was thereupon ordered to leave a corps, under General Tormazov, to defend Volhynia against the Austrians about Lemberg, and to march with the 7th and 8th Corps through the Pinsk Marshes to Pruzhani. This movement appears to have escaped Napoleon until the last. As the French continued to advance, inclining more and more to the left, and pushing forward in dense masses into the north-east corner of Prussia, Bagration moved on to Volkovisk, about 100 miles south-southwest of Vilna, Napoleon believing him to be still at Lutsk and Brest-Litovsk.

Thus in the early days of June all was prepared for the opening of the grand drama. The hostile armies faced each other on a front of about 170 miles, with a distance of from 100 to 200 miles separating their main masses. Considerably to the southward, the Austrians, under Prince Schwarzenberg, and the army of General Tormazov confronted each other on the Galician frontier, and would evidently fight an independent contest. On May 30th Napoleon left Dresden for the front, and with his arrival at Gumbinnen on June 17th, after a detour by Thorn, Danzig and Königsberg in order to inspect the depôts at those places, the campaign may be said to have definitely commenced.

[CHAPTER II]

NAPOLEON’S ARMY AND ITS GENERALS

The army with which Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 was the largest which he had yet commanded, and almost certainly the largest that had ever been gathered for the purposes of a campaign under the leadership of a single man. None the less it was too small for its task, and when, on August 23rd, Napoleon left Smolensk on the last stage of the advance on Moscow, his communications were already inadequately guarded. A greater defect was its lack of homogeneity. Even in the nominally French regiments which formed the core of the vast host there were great numbers of troops drawn from the German, Dutch, Flemish and Italian provinces of the Empire. Round this nucleus were ranged masses of allies from almost every country in southern and western Europe.

The French Imperial Army in 1812 contained 107 regiments of infantry of the line and 31 of light infantry—138 in all. According to numeration there should have been 164, but 26 had disappeared from the roll for various reasons. During 1812 several new regiments were formed, chiefly from the conscrits réfractaires—men who had endeavoured to escape the remorseless conscription, and were confined and trained in special remote camps.

An infantry regiment comprised 1 depôt battalion and from 2 to 5 field battalions, each of 6 companies of 140 officers and men. One company consisted of Grenadiers and 1 of Voltigeurs; the former were chosen for height and strength, the latter, whose duties were those of skirmishers, for activity. All were, however, armed with the flintlock musket, though that of the Voltigeurs was of a lighter and improved pattern. Voltigeur sergeants carried a special carabine. Sappers were armed with a mousqueton or carbine. All these weapons were fitted with a triangular bayonet. Fire training was frequently of a very elementary character. The number of cartridges carried on the person was from 50 to 60.

Non-commissioned officers, Grenadiers and Sappers, were provided with a short sabre (sabre-bricquet) in addition to their fire-arms. Musicians also were armed with swords.

The total weight carried on the march, including weapons, ammunition, rations, kit, and share of camping essentials, was about 50 English pounds.

The line cavalry comprised 16 regiments of Cuirassiers and Carabiniers, 24 of Dragoons, 28 of Chasseurs-à-cheval, 11 of Hussars, and 9 of Chevau-légers. The last were special regiments designed to accompany the heavy Cuirassiers, who were ill adapted for performing scouting and outpost duty. Each cavalry regiment had, as a rule, 1 depôt squadron and 4 field squadrons, each of 2 companies of 125 officers and men, or a total of 1000 sabres. Chevau-léger regiments appear to have had only 3 field squadrons.

Cuirassiers were protected by steel helmets and cuirasses. The cuirass covered both back and breast, and weighed about 15 pounds. The breastplate was theoretically bullet-proof at a range of 40 metres, and really seems to have afforded fairly adequate protection, judging from the small proportion of killed and wounded among the cuirassier officers disabled at Borodino. Cuirassiers were armed with a long, straight sword and a pair of pistols. Dragoons carried in addition a carbine. Chasseurs-à-cheval and Hussars had carbine, pistol and a curved sabre. In the Chevau-léger regiments two-thirds of the troopers were armed with lance, sabre and one pistol; the remainder had, in place of the lance, a carbine in order to perform skirmishing and outpost duties.

The cavalry was largely mounted upon horses of German breed; but even so the supply was hardly adequate. Besides, many of the horses were too young, and the hardships of the war destroyed them at a rate which was steadily on the increase. The pace of the charges was never the wild gallop familiar to us from many a spirited but inaccurate painting. A trot was the best that Cuirassiers could usually do, and light cavalry was often little faster.

It has become a kind of legend that Napoleon’s artillery was always his strongest arm, but this was by no means the case. In his earlier campaigns he was weak in artillery; in 1805 and 1806 he had but 5 guns to 3000 men. It is true that his gunners were generally better trained than their opponents; but at Eylau at any rate this hardly compensated for numerical inferiority, the French having only some 250 guns to oppose to 460 Russian pieces. At Aspern, again, Napoleon put only some 200 guns into the field against more than 300 admirably served Austrian cannon. His infantry also was evidently deteriorating in quality, and needed the moral as well as the physical support of powerful batteries. In and after 1809, therefore, Napoleon greatly augmented his field artillery. He also revived a practice of very doubtful utility in attaching to each regiment of infantry 2 or 4 light guns, served by a detachment of regimental gunners. The experiment had very qualified success; corps commanders were inclined to regard the regimental artillery as a mere nuisance. It would surely have been better to attach batteries of regular artillery to the regiments.

There were 9 22-company regiments of foot artillery, 43 companies of horse artillery in 6 regiments, and 27 6-company battalions of artillery train. The company of foot artillery consisted of 120 officers and men, that of horse artillery of 100. A battery consisted of a company of artillery and a company or half-company of train.

The field and horse artillery was armed with 12- and 6-pounder guns and 32- and 24-pounder howitzers. There were also some 4-pounders. A battery usually contained 4 or 6 guns and 2 howitzers. The regimental guns were light 3-pounders.

The quality of the artillery was high. Many of its officers had made a scientific study of their profession; and the force as a whole was highly trained. The material was good, but British officers considered it much inferior to that of their own army. Manœuvring was for the foot artillery a slow process, and for the rapid formation of his great preparatory batteries Napoleon was generally obliged to rely upon the horse artillery.

The technical troops were sufficient in number, admirable in quality, and directed by scientific officers. All through the Napoleonic wars the engineers did splendid service, and never was their skill and devotion more evident than in Russia. The construction and maintenance of the bridges of the Berezina, amid every kind of misery and disadvantage, is perhaps the fairest leaf on the crown of the French engineers.

Napoleon, realising that in thinly peopled Russia he could not wage war as in Germany, had made great exertions to organise a transport service, especially for the conveyance of food supplies. There were 26 battalions. Most of these had each 252 four-horsed waggons, each waggon with a load of 1500 kilogrammes. Four of them had 600 light carts, each with a load of 600 kilogrammes; and 4 were supplied each with 600 ox-waggons with a capacity of 1000 kilogrammes. The oxen were later to be killed and eaten—a foolish idea, which it is needless to say could not be carried out. Overworked draft cattle cannot be used for food. In practice the transport broke down hopelessly. Despite ruthless plundering in Prussia it was short of draft beasts from the outset. So, too, was the artillery, and it may be imagined that when horses were found the latter appropriated them as a matter of course. Forage was scarce. Finally there were hardly any roads which would bear the weight of the trains. They soon fell far to the rear, and from the first there was a shortage of supplies at the front.

Distinct from the army as a whole was the Imperial Guard. The inception of this force dated from 1800, when Napoleon formed a “Consular Guard” of 2 infantry and 2 cavalry regiments, selected from men who had served four campaigns. In 1806 and 1807 fresh regiments were raised on the same principle, and then numerous battalions of picked recruits. When Holland was incorporated in the Empire the Dutch Guards were also included.

The Old Guard comprised 3 regiments of Grenadiers (1 Dutch) and 2 of Chasseurs. The infantry of the New or Young Guard included 1 regiment of “Fusilier-Grenadiers” and 1 of “Fusilier-Chasseurs,” formed in 1806, 6 regiments of Tirailleurs (Sharpshooters), 7 of Voltigeurs, and 1 of “Flanqueurs-Chasseurs.” The last was a new regiment. The Voltigeurs and Tirailleurs had for the most part served two campaigns in Spain, and were seasoned troops. The 2nd and 3rd regiments of each arm remained in Spain, and the 7th Voltigeurs in France. All the other regiments went to Russia. They formed one division of the Old Guard and two of the Young Guard. The “Legion of the Vistula”—3 regiments of veteran Polish troops—was attached to the Guard on entering Russia. All Guard infantry regiments consisted of 2 field battalions, generally weaker than line units.

The cavalry included the two original regiments of the old Consular Guard, the Chasseurs-à-cheval and the Grenadiers-à-cheval, and a Dragoon regiment. These were French. There were also 2 Lancer regiments, 1 Dutch, 1 Polish. Guard cavalry regiments had 5 field squadrons. There were 2 squadrons of Gendarmerie d’Élite, and the celebrated Mameluke company—a troop of Oriental cavaliers.

The artillery of the Guard consisted of 10 foot and 4 horse artillery companies with their train. In August, 1812, the foot batteries were armed (apparently) with 32 4-pounder guns, 18 6-pounders, 24 12-pounders, and 14 32- and 24-pounder howitzers; the horse batteries with 16 6-pounder guns and 8 24-pounder howitzers. The Guard also possessed its own service of engineers, and eight companies of seaman for work on coasts or inland waters.

The pay of the Guards was higher than that of the troops of the line, and non-commissioned officers ranked with line subalterns. The Guards were envied and disliked by the line troops, who regarded them as a pampered corps. Napoleon certainly nursed them as far as possible, and in 1812 they were only in action, as a body, on a single occasion. The idea that they were the deciding factor in all Napoleon’s great victories is without foundation.

Marshal Berthier, as Prince of Neufchâtel, was attended at head-quarters by a battalion of Guards raised in his own principality; and a troop of specially selected horsemen formed Napoleon’s personal escort. During the campaign a battalion of Hesse-Darmstadt Guards, under Prince Emil, and a regiment of Portuguese light cavalry were also attached to head-quarters.

The higher organisation of the army was by brigades, divisions, and army corps of infantry or cavalry as the case might be. The strength of these units varied greatly. A brigade of infantry often consisted of a single large regiment; and divisions varied in the number of their battalions from 6 to 22. Compans’ division of Davout’s corps was equal in strength to the two Westphalian divisions taken together. The army corps also varied much in strength, owing to Napoleon’s reasonable practice of entrusting specially talented generals with greater numbers than less able officers. The 1st Corps of the Grand Army in 1812 consisted of five large divisions, and totalled some 72,000 men; while the entire Westphalian Corps counted only 18,000.

The science of clothing soldiers simply and sensibly is so little understood even to-day that it can hardly be sought in 1812. There was less of polish and pipeclay in the French army than in that of Great Britain; but the uniforms were frequently as comfortless and awkward as they well could be. One wonders how the men could march and fight in them. The headgear was often especially clumsy and absurd. To deal with the many types of uniform would need a separate work. The infantry were generally attired in the blue uniform coat which had replaced the Bourbon white at the Revolution. Cuirassiers wore blue; Dragoons green; Chasseurs and Hussars green, with facings of every colour. In general it seems that there was a good deal of rather tawdry display about the uniforms of Napoleon’s soldiers. Love of ostentation appears to be so deeply emplanted in the French character that at this day the abolition of the old glaring uniforms has been much delayed.

The soldier’s daily rations consisted of, roughly, 28 ounces of bread, 4 ounces of vegetables or 2 of rice, 10 ounces of meat, and beer or wine according to the country. French soldiers, with their national genius for cookery, were adepts at making themselves comfortable; and when rations were regularly distributed they fared well enough. But Napoleon’s system of subsisting his armies on the country would not work in Russia. Even in Germany in 1806, and still more in 1813, the troops were often in dire distress for food. In 1812 almost from the first it was impossible to keep up any regular distribution of rations. The soldiers were reduced to marauding for supplies, but in a poor country they were often not procurable, and the unfortunate men early began to feel the pinch of want. Napoleon did his best. He ordered the construction of bakeries at every halting-place; but orders can effect little without materials, and the latter were frequently lacking. The rye of Russia, also, did not suit the stomachs of men accustomed to flour ground from other grains; and the quality both of flour and bread was generally bad. Herds of beef-cattle were driven with the army, but their flesh rapidly deteriorated under the effects of bad fodder and fatigue. Generally speaking, the periods when the Grand Army was not living from hand to mouth were few, even on the advance. During the retreat it was half-starved at best.

DETAILS OF THE UNIFORMS OF THE INFANTRY OF THE FRENCH ARMY IN 1812
From “Uniformes de l’Armée française.” By Lienhart and Humbert

In the disorganisation of the transport the hospital service fared badly. There was a fairly adequate staff of surgeons and medical officers; but their efforts—often devoted and persevering in the highest degree—could effect little when supplies of every kind were lacking. On the outward route, no less than the return, men died in thousands by the roadsides, uncared for and unnoticed. Nearly half the Bavarian Corps died or was invalided without seeing an enemy. The hospitals were inadequate and badly equipped from the outset; later on their condition became too frightful for words. All whom ill-fortune or duty brought into contact with them describe them in terms of horror. They eventually became mere charnel-houses, in which men were left to perish in thousands of every kind of misery.

The French army in 1812 was undoubtedly, from the military standpoint, the best organised in Europe; but its officers, as a whole, left much to be desired. The rapid increase of the numbers of the rank and file since 1806 had involved the improvisation of thousands of officers, often from doubtful material. The best of the regimental officers were those who united education to practical experience, but they were relatively few in number. The cadets of the military school were admirable material, but naturally lacked experience and, as De Fezensac adds, the physical strength which was so necessary. But besides those classes of educated officers there was a third composed of promoted sergeants, whose education was, as a rule, elementary. One of them, the worthy Staff-Captain Coignet, tells us in his delightful autobiography that he did not learn to write until he was thirty-three years of age! He was, indeed, a man of much natural sagacity, and keenly regretted his deficiencies; but it is obvious that these illiterate men can scarcely have made good company officers. The officers of the artillery and engineers were indeed generally excellent; but many of those of the cavalry, though dashing leaders on the field, possessed little solid knowledge of the duties of their arm, and the work of keeping in touch with the enemy was often very badly performed.

As regards their ideas of personal ease the French officers were no better than their opponents. Their private vehicles and baggage swelled the trains to gigantic dimensions—a fact which contributed much to the disasters of the retreat.

The quality of the rank and file was by no means what it had been in the great years of Austerlitz and Jena. The bloody campaign of 1807 had created gaps not easily to be filled at the time, and the Austrian and Peninsular wars deprived the army of the leisure necessary for it to repair its losses. The French divisions of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Army Corps contained many old regiments, but even in them there was a large proportion of recruits; and there were a number of regiments, belonging to newly annexed provinces, which were not altogether trustworthy. Their material—the sturdy peasantry of the Low Countries and North Germany—was excellent, and their conduct on the field usually irreproachable; but their administration and discipline left much to be desired. Their bad condition was continually exercising the soul of the order-loving Davout. In one despatch he describes the Dutch 33rd Léger as canaille, and declares in disgust that he can do nothing with it. Ney likewise complained of the 129th, and pointed out that it would have been better to draft the recruits of which it was composed into older regiments. It is probable that Napoleon’s object in forming new units was to train as many officers as possible.

The deterioration of the troops rendered it necessary to employ deep tactical formations, with consequent risk of heavy losses. The usual formations for attacking infantry were (1) the “column of companies,” in which each battalion advanced with its companies in three-deep line, one behind another, and (2) the “column of divisions,” with a front of two companies instead of one. At best the front was narrow and the volume of fire proportionately weak, even when, as was usual, each battalion was preceded by a skirmishing line of Voltigeurs. Napoleon was fully aware of the fire weakness of these attack formations, and recommended as the ideal the ordre mixte in which battalions in column alternated with others in line. This order, like the others, failed hopelessly against the British two-deep line which brought every musket into action; and it is remarkable that able French generals continued to employ it when its inefficiency had been so clearly demonstrated. It is at least probable that the excitable and imaginative French soldiery could not advance steadily in line. At any rate, French tacticians trusted, to the end, in the thick skirmishing line which preceded the advance being able to clear a way for the masses behind. As the Russians, with less intelligent and (on the whole) worse trained troops, adopted similar tactics, the problems which troubled the French in Spain did not arise in Russia.

The French cavalry was excellent on the field, but otherwise often unsatisfactory. In scouting and outpost work it was inefficient; more than once during the campaign touch with the Russians was entirely lost. No doubt much of this inefficiency was due to the exhaustion of the horses. Forage was generally scarce, and to losses from fatigue and lack of food were soon added those in action. The men were frequently poor horse-masters. Murat took no care for the mounts, and over-worked his force from the first. When the central army began its retreat only 15,000 horsemen remained mounted, and none but the Guard regiments were really fit for service.

Concerning the internal condition of the French army something must be said. With the old soldiers devotion to their leader was still the watchword; but it would be a grave mistake to imagine that this sentiment was universal, especially among the better educated elements of the army. Yet the loyalty of the troops, as a whole, admits of no doubt. Sir Robert Wilson and De Fezensac are at one in bearing witness to this. The desire for plunder no doubt counted for something, but it was hunger rather than greed that made the French soldier a marauder. The spirit of brigandage was indeed rife in the army, and infected everyone from the commanders downward. On the whole, it may fairly be said that in the ranks the sense of loyalty was strong and the general spirit good, but that discipline was often badly maintained and naturally tended to become more and more relaxed as hardships increased. Further, it may be observed that while there were numbers of irreproachable men among the officers, there were also many greedy adventurers, besides those who were demoralised, like their men, by years of predatory warfare. Finally, there was, of course, in the army the ruffianly element, which is never absent. To this element must be attributed the commission of most of the atrocities which undoubtedly took place, and for which the whole army had later to suffer. One further point must be touched upon. The evidence as to the presence of women and children with the army, especially during the retreat, is abundant and overwhelming. This unhappy element consisted, in the first place, of female camp-followers—vivandières, cantinières and the like—mostly the wives of soldiers. Some of the officers, at any rate, were ill-advised enough to take their wives with them. The foreign population of Moscow mostly awaited the invaders, and fled with them in fear of Russian vengeance. Finally, the morals of the French army in sexual matters can only be described as low, at any rate from the British standpoint. Napoleon himself was not so much immoral as unmoral—not that there is any absolute proof that he gave way to his passions during the Russian campaign—and many of his officers followed his example. On the whole, it seems clear that for one reason or another the invading army was burdened with thousands of women and children, whose sufferings during the retreat constituted probably its most harrowing feature.

The troops of the allied states who accompanied and outnumbered the French were, generally speaking, the fair equals on the field of their comrades-in-arms. The Bavarians, Westphalians and Württembergers all behaved splendidly; and some of the finest fighting in the war was accomplished by the Berg and Baden regiments at the passage of the Berezina. The Italians fought admirably at the one general action at which they had the fortune to be present. The great Polish contingent performed splendid service for the man to whom Poland looked for its restoration to the roll of independent nations. Nor can any fault be found with the conduct in battle of the Spanish and Portuguese troops, though they were no better than prisoners, serving by compulsion. The Austrians and Prussians generally took no very prominent part in the campaign; but what they did was by no means to their discredit.

It was in administration rather than fighting quality that the allied troops fell below the French standard. They were also generally so badly supplied that the best administration could have effected little to improve their lot. The fine Bavarian and Württemberg troops wasted away by half before they had seen an enemy, and the Poles, to judge from Poniatowski’s despatches, were often little better off. That the Spaniards and Portuguese supplied more than their proportion of deserters and pillagers is merely what might have been expected, and the same may be said of the Croats and Illyrians, whose interest in the war in which they were sacrificed was absolutely nil. Yet, on the whole, it cannot well be said that the foreign troops showed conspicuously worse discipline than their French comrades, though doubtless the general mixture of races and languages tended to lower the general standard.

As to the absolute quality of the allied troops it is very difficult to speak. The German and Swiss infantry were very solid and good, though of course the quality of the different contingents varied, and perhaps the Bavarians, Württembergers and Badeners rose above the general level. The Saxon cavalry were admirable, and probably the best in the entire Grande Armée. The German artillery also, especially that of Württemberg, was good.

The best of the Polish troops were very good indeed; but the regiments were largely composed of raw recruits, hastily raised for the great effort which, as the Poles of Warsaw fondly hoped, was to re-establish their national existence. The cavalry was good; the infantry less so. Discipline does not appear to have been very satisfactory; the officers included too many Pans, owing their commissions to their noble birth.

The Prussians were probably the best disciplined and best officered of all the allied troops. The general quality of the Austrians, also, was good.

Upon the whole, it cannot be doubted that the Grande Armée of 1812 was too heterogeneous, and that its quality was not of the best. Much of it had been hastily raised; and its enormous numbers merely added to the difficulty of provisioning it and, in consequence, to its misery and losses. General Bonnal thinks that Napoleon, when he collected the gigantic force, was more or less suffering from megalomania; and that he would have achieved more had he depended upon a Franco-Polish first line of about 250,000 troops, perfectly organised, disciplined and supplied. The point is certainly worthy of consideration.

Something must be said of the commanders who, under the direction of Napoleon, conducted the greatest of his armies during the most ambitious and disastrous of his campaigns.

For Napoleon himself a very few words must suffice. More has probably been written about him than of any other single figure in history. No good purpose can here be served by anything more than some brief animadversions upon the share which he himself had in the catastrophe of 1812.

Napoleon’s position as the greatest military leader of modern times is as yet unchallenged; and it is needless therefore to discuss it. In 1812 he was, as far as years go, a comparatively young man. He was barely forty-three; his bodily energy and capacity of endurance were yet enormous. Nevertheless, he was not the Napoleon of 1800 and 1805. He had grown stout and somewhat unwieldy; and his gross habit of body must at times have affected his mind. Nor is it possible to ignore the first-hand evidence as to his indifferent health on more than one important occasion.

Napoleon’s fierce and impetuous nature always made light of obstacles, and lack of patience was certainly a very pronounced feature in his character. Wellington is said to have remarked that it incapacitated the Emperor from defensive action in 1814, when circumstances imperatively demanded it.

Finally, Napoleon in 1812 was ruler as well as general; and political considerations probably had something to do with his adoption of courses of action indefensible from the military standpoint.

Napoleon’s natural impatience, and his rage at being unable to strike a crushing blow, will probably explain the fatal rush in August past Smolensk on to Moscow. Bodily suffering appears to the author to account satisfactorily for his undoubted lack of energy at Borodino. The fatal delay at Moscow may fairly be attributed to a combination of political circumstances and not entirely unfounded optimism as regards the future.

For some of Napoleon’s amazing blunders on the retreat reasons such as these will hardly account. The fatal dispersion of the marching columns along 60 miles of road, even after passing Smolensk, when the army was already worn down to a mere remnant; the unnecessarily slow pace of the march, the burning of the pontoon train previous to the passage of the Berezina, are cases in point; and can hardly be attributed to anything save declining intellectual powers.

On the whole, it seems difficult to deny that Napoleon, in 1812, had definitely entered upon his decline; that his perception was less clear than of old; that his bodily energy had decayed; that his genius, though still capable of burning brightly, now only blazed forth fitfully. Certainly there were times during the Moscow campaign when it appeared to be almost extinct.

Marshal Berthier, Prince of Neufchâtel, served in 1812, as in every campaign of Napoleon since 1796, as chief-of-staff. His methodical habits and untiring industry, coupled with his complete familiarity with Napoleon’s character, rendered him indispensable to the latter. His military talents were not remarkable, and his general position was rather that of a confidential secretary than that of a modern chief-of-staff—for whom, indeed, there was no place near a man of Napoleon’s essentially despotic temperament.

MARSHAL DAVOUT
Commander of the 1st French Army Corps
From the painting by Gautherdt at Versailles

Marshal Louis Nicolas Davout, Prince of Eckmuhl and Duke of Auërstadt, commander of the huge 1st Corps d’Armée, was probably the best of all Napoleon’s generals, though he never had such opportunities of distinguishing himself in independent command as were granted to Masséna and Soult. He was a fine example of the modern scientific soldier, a stern disciplinarian and an admirable administrator, with a passion for order and method; and very careful of his men. The charges of cruelty brought against him do not appear to the author to have been satisfactorily made out—certainly not according to the standards of humanity generally accepted in Continental warfare. At the same time, there was undoubtedly a harsh and rough side to his character, and he seems to have lacked self-control and tact. Davout had excellent strategic insight, and his tactical ability and tenacity in action had been frequently and brilliantly demonstrated. He took a distinguished part in the first half of the campaign of 1812, but rather failed in the unaccustomed post of rear-guard commander. Men of his methodical habit of mind are probably ill-fitted to shine in such a turmoil of misery and disorder as the retreat from Moscow.

Marshal Oudinot, Duke of Reggio, was a hard-fighting veteran of the Revolution, who had received his bâton for services rendered in supporting Davout at Wagram. He was an excellent subordinate, but failed in separate command like so many of Napoleon’s generals, though his action previous to the passage of the Berezina was highly meritorious.

Michel Ney, Duke of Elchingen, Marshal of France, reaped most of the credit gained by Napoleon’s generals in 1812. Ney is commonly regarded as a mere hard fighter, but he was fairly well educated, and to all appearance a careful administrator. Among the papers of the French War Office relating to 1812 is an order in which he carefully instructs his suffering troops how to cook the unground grain which was their only food. As a strategist Ney did not excel, and he failed in independent command, but he was a fine tactician, and as a corps commander probably unsurpassed. His famous title “Le Brave des Braves” fairly sums up his character. His courage was indeed of that nobler type which rises to its height at the moment when that of meaner men declines.

Prince Eugène, Viceroy of Italy, son of the ex-Empress Josephine, was by virtue of his Imperial rank the commander of the army of Italy. He was brave, disinterested and devoted to his stepfather, but his military talents were not great, and he lacked experience. In 1809 he had been opposed to a commander even less capable than himself, and his officers and soldiers had helped him successfully out of his difficulties.

Prince Joseph Anthony Poniatowski, nephew of the last King of Poland, could hardly have been passed over in appointing a commander for the 5th (Polish) Army Corps; especially as he was Minister of War of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. He was brave and popular with his men, but possessed of no great capacity, and was indolent and pleasure loving.

General Gouvion St. Cyr, who was promoted Marshal for his victory over Wittgenstein at Polotsk in August, was a very capable though disaffected officer, who had, as far as good service counted for anything, won his bâton long before.

General Reynier, the commander of the Saxon 7th Corps, was a hard-fighting, experienced soldier of no special ability, and extremely unfortunate in war. Junot, who took over the Westphalian Corps from King Jerome, owed his position chiefly to Napoleon’s friendship for him.

PRINCE JOSEPH ANTHONY PONIATOWSKI, NEPHEW OF STANISLAUS AUGUSTUS, THE LAST KING OF POLAND
Commander of the 5th (Polish) Corps of the Grand Army
From the painting by T.A. Vauchelet at Versailles

King Jerome Napoleon of Westphalia would probably have done well enough at the head of the troops of his own kingdom; his courage, as he showed at Waterloo, was beyond question. But to place him in command of three army corps, operating in a difficult country, and charged with a vitally important mission, was a gigantic blunder on the part of Napoleon. It is no especial discredit to Jerome that he failed so completely. General Bonnal observes that he cannot be blamed for transgressing military principles with which he had never been acquainted.

Marshal Victor, the commander of the 9th Corps, was an experienced officer, but had been very unfortunate in the Peninsula against the British.

Marshal Macdonald, commanding the 10th Corps, took a very small part in the campaign; and, unless he had special orders, cannot be said to have displayed much activity. He was a man of high personal character and a good hard-fighting corps commander, but of no eminence as a general.

Napoleon, during the latter part of his career, was repeatedly accused of placing his relations in positions for which they were not fitted. The case of King Jerome is one in point; so also perhaps, to a certain extent, is that of Napoleon’s celebrated brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, King of Naples, commander of the Cavalry Reserves. Audacity and tactical ability on the field Murat certainly possessed, but he was hardly a great cavalry leader. His outpost and reconnaissance work was often very badly performed, and his impetuosity caused him to overwork and harass his men and horses. He lacked stability of character and steadiness in adversity, as he was soon to show. Yet as King of Naples he possesses more than one title to esteem, and in his character, amidst vanity and absurdity, there was much that was elevated and noble.

The commanders of the four corps under Murat’s orders were all men of experience as cavalry leaders. The best of them, perhaps, was Nansouty, at any rate in his own estimation, but the name of Grouchy is better known in Great Britain. Montbrun and Latour-Maubourg had seen much service in Spain.

Marshal Lefebvre, Duke of Dantzic, commander of the Old Guard, was much attached to Napoleon, but otherwise merely a rough, honest old soldier of little strategic or tactical ability. His title was much better deserved by the brilliant engineer, General Chasseloup, who accompanied the army in 1812 as chief of his branch of the service.

Marshal Mortier, Duke of Treviso, commander of the Young Guard, was an excellent corps commander, as had been demonstrated in Spain.

Marshal Bessières, Duke of Istria, had been associated with the cavalry of the Guard since its formation. He was a fine cavalry leader, and a man of integrity and devotion to his chief, otherwise deserving of no special mention.

Generally speaking, Napoleon’s commanding officers had one great defect. With few exceptions they had become so habituated to submission to the dominating personality of the Emperor that they had lost all power of initiative.

In an army so huge and of such experience there were naturally many officers who in a less warlike age would have been acclaimed as great generals. The majority of the divisional and brigade leaders were excellent, though some were already wearing out. Several of them—men such as Verdier—had had considerable experience in independent command, and some had acquired therein a by no means savoury reputation. Gudin, the leader of Davout’s 3rd Division, was perhaps the most distinguished as a soldier, but his colleagues Friant, Morand, Desaix and Compans were all fine officers. Legrand, Merle, Verdier, Ledru, Marchand, Broussier, Pino, Bruyère, Sebastiani, St. Germain, Claparède, Tharreau, and others were men of considerable merit and experience.

Of the General Staff it may be said that it had scarcely any affinity with the board of specially trained officers which accompanies and assists a modern commander-in-chief. Napoleon’s absorption, in his single person, of all military and administrative functions had reduced it to a position of complete insignificance. For all practical purposes it was nothing but a mass of orderlies, and though it contained many talented and meritorious officers they had small opportunity of distinguishing themselves so long as they remained members of it. Napoleon in one moment of exasperation declared that “the General Staff is organised in such a manner that nothing is foreseen.” The remark was more or less true; but that such a state of affairs could exist is a very severe comment upon his methods. The invading host was, in short, the army of a despot who endeavoured to supervise everything himself and discouraged initiative in others, with the natural result that much that might have been done to minimise the catastrophe was not attempted.

The numbers of the invading army and its composition, according to the states and peoples who contributed contingents, are given in detail in Appendices A and B. Roughly it may be said that during the campaign Napoleon disposed of the following numbers:—

First Line

Head-quarters; Imperial Guard; }
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, Corps; } 449,000
Austrian Corps; Cavalry Reserve}

Second Line

9th Corps; Polish and Lithuanian levies; }
2 French Divisions; } 165,000
German Troops, Drafts, Parks, etc. }

Third Line

Drafts and organised troops in touch with }
Russians at close of campaign, including} 60,000
garrisons of Danzig and on Vistula }
————
674,000

The composition by nations of the first two lines may be stated as follows:—

French and New French 302,000
Germans and Swiss 190,000
Poles and Lithuanians 90,000
Italians, Illyrians, Spaniards, Portuguese 32,000
————
614,000
————

[CHAPTER III]

THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS GENERALS

The circumstance which most impresses the reader who for the first time, and without knowledge of the conditions, peruses the story of the Franco-Russian campaign of 1812 is that the forces of Russia were, as compared with those of Napoleon, very weak. This weakness in war is familiar enough to all students of Russian history, nor are the reasons far to seek. Since, however, it must appear peculiar to all who regard Russia as a power essentially huge and powerful—the “Colossus of the North”—its causes must be briefly reviewed.

It is true that Russia is a country of vast extent; but her huge territory, to-day very imperfectly developed, was in 1812 largely in an almost primeval condition, while the population was even more sparsely distributed. The country was and is covered in many places by wide expanses of almost impenetrable forest, and by vast tracts of morass. In the western provinces the marshes of Pinsk cover an area of more than 20,000 square miles; and in 1812 they were pierced by only three indifferent roads. The majority of the numerous rivers do not in themselves present grave obstacles to intercommunication or military operations, being in summer shallow and easily fordable, and in winter usually frozen over, but they are often wide, and frequently have soft or sandy beds. The larger of them must be negotiated by means of bridges, and in 1812 bridges were few. Moreover, in Central Russia the soil is generally yielding and sandy, and every small stream has hollowed for itself in the course of ages a gully more or less deep. These gullies, repeatedly recurring, presented considerable obstacles, especially since they were rarely bridged.

The distances to be traversed were and are enormous. Readers of Herodotus will remember how the prospect of the three months’ march from Miletus to Susa frightened Kleomenes and the elders of Sparta. To transfer troops from the Caucasus to St. Petersburg in 1812 involved a journey of even greater magnitude—without the aid of the Royal Road of Persia. Even to-day the Russian roads are comparatively few and bad. In 1812 it was infinitely worse. The few high-roads were frequently very badly maintained; cross-roads of use for military purposes were almost non-existent.

Finally, Russia was as undeveloped politically as economically. The bulk of the peasantry were serfs chained to the soil. The accepted method of enrolling them for the national defence was to call upon the nobles, who owned the greater part of the land, for a levy of so many per hundred or thousand souls. Their interests naturally induced them to endeavour to retain the best and most industrious of their serfs, and to furnish for the army the ill-conditioned or idle, as far as possible. In a country in which corruption has always been rampant the recruiting officials were doubtless amenable to the influence of judicious bribery, and the actual result of a military levy was often far less than it should have been. The slowness of communication, the general poverty of the Government, the lack of factories of clothing, arms and ammunition, added to the difficulty of rapidly and efficiently increasing the armed strength. In 1812 Russia was suffering also from an almost complete cessation of commerce, the result of the British blockade of her coasts brought on by the alliance with Napoleon in 1807, and the financial difficulties were in consequence even greater than usual.

The Russian army, since its organisation on European methods by Peter the Great, has usually tended to be a rather crude and imperfect copy of the most modern force of the time. In 1812 French ideas naturally predominated, and their influence was apparent in many respects, especially in the direction of the higher organisations.

Early in 1810, as already noted, General Barclay de Tolly became Minister of War in Russia, and set himself earnestly, with the support of the Emperor, to reorganise the army. Divided counsels near the Tzar, and the adverse influence of the conditions above detailed, rendered the execution of his plans slow and difficult. Nevertheless, a great deal was effected, and whatever opinions may be held as to Barclay’s military ability there can be no doubt of his talent for organising.

In 1812 the Russian infantry comprised 6 regiments of Imperial Guards, 14 of Grenadiers, 50 of light infantry (Chasseurs), and 96 of the line. Each regiment consisted of 3 4-company battalions with an establishment of 764 officers and men per battalion in the Guards, and 738 in the line. As a fact, only the Guard regiments were able to complete 3 field battalions. The strengths of the line regiments were so low that Barclay could only complete 2 battalions of each regiment at the expense of the third. One company of the third battalion was also completed by drafts from the other three, and these companies combined in threes or fours to form battalions of “combined grenadiers.” There then remained to each regiment a weak battalion of three depleted companies. These were collected at various strategic centres as “Reserve Divisions,” and Barclay hoped to complete them with recruits. He designed the formation of thirty-six depôts at suitable points, at which new levies were to be trained into additional battalions and squadrons for the infantry and cavalry regiments. In this respect, however, there was not enough time for his judicious arrangements to have much effect. In practice Russia was able to do little more than maintain her field army at something like war strength. The third battalions, reserves and new levies were chiefly absorbed in feeding the fighting line.

A large proportion of the troops were by 1812 armed with a musket of new model, about equal to that with which the French and British infantry were furnished, but many still carried the older and clumsier weapon which had been employed in 1807. The bullet was rather heavier than that of the French infantry musket; but, judging from the fact that the Russians usually appear to have had a higher proportion of killed to wounded than their adversaries, it is probable that the powder was often inferior.

The Russian cavalry included 6 Guard regiments—2 of Cuirassiers, 1 of Dragoons, 1 of Hussars, 1 of Uhlans (Lancers) and 1 of Cossacks—each of 4 field squadrons and 1 depôt squadron. The Cossack regiment included a detachment of Orenburg Cossacks, and apparently had 5 or 6 field squadrons. The line cavalry comprised 8 regiments of Cuirassiers, 36 of Dragoons, each of 4 field squadrons and the depôt; 11 of Hussars and 5 of Uhlans, each with 8 field and 2 depôt squadrons. The establishment of a Guard squadron was 159 officers and men, that of a line squadron 151. The cavalry was well and adequately mounted, much better so than that of Napoleon. The men were less well trained than their opponents, but, belonging to a country in which there is a horse to every five or six human beings, were probably good horse masters. Hay was the usual forage, and, to the surprise of Clausewitz, the horses throve upon it. Accurate details of armament I have been unable to procure, except that the line Cuirassiers were only protected on the breast. Helmets and cuirasses were painted black, not polished—a very sensible and labour-saving device.

The gradual inclusion in Russia of nomadic peoples and of the old border moss-trooping or Cossack (really Kazak=freebooter) settlements enabled the Government to supplement its forces by swarms of irregular horsemen. Besides the Cossacks these were Crimean Tartars, Kalmuks and Bashkirs—the latter still clothed in chain mail and armed with the bow! In June there were perhaps 15,000 of them on the western frontier. Their numbers later increased to 30,000 or more. Their reputation rests largely upon the dread with which they inspired the demoralised Napoleonic army during its retreat. In the field they could not contend with regulars, and even during the retreat could never achieve anything against such of the French infantry as kept its ranks. For guerilla operations and for harassing the retreat they were invaluable.

In artillery Russian armies have usually been very strong. The inefficiency of the mediæval Muscovite levies of horse and foot led early to a remarkable and precocious development of the artillery arm. Peter the Great in his reorganisation paid special attention to it, and his crowning victory at Poltava was very largely due to his excellent artillery. After Peter’s reign his policy was continued, and Russia owed many victories to the masses of well-served guns which accompanied her armies.

In 1812 the Russian artillery of the line comprised 44 heavy, 58 light and 22 horse-artillery batteries organised in 27 foot and 10 reserve brigades, besides single horse artillery batteries attached to the cavalry. There were also 29 depôt companies. The numbers of gunners and drivers varied from an average of 240 for the heavy batteries to 160 for light artillery companies. They were each armed with 12 guns and howitzers. Cossacks had their own horse batteries.

The artillery of the Guard comprised 2 heavy and 2 light batteries, each of 16 guns and howitzers, and 2 horse artillery batteries of 8, with establishments in proportion.

The armament consisted of 18-pounder (½-púd) howitzers and 12-pounder guns for the heavy batteries, 9-pounder howitzers and 6-pounder guns for the light artillery, and 6-pounders for the horse batteries. The heavy ammunition waggons customary in other European armies were not employed in Russia, their place being taken by a larger number of light vehicles. The quality of the material appears generally to have been excellent, though Sir R. Wilson and General Kutaïsov recommended various improvements; and the draft horses were very numerous and good. The Russian artillery continually performed feats of transport that speak volumes for its high quality, and the number of pieces abandoned or captured was extraordinarily small.

The technical troops were few in number and lacking both in scientific officers and training. The medical department, though far better than in 1807, when it was practically non-existent, was still terribly inadequate and ill equipped, and trained physicians and surgeons were very few.

There were 32 garrison regiments, 1 Guard garrison battalion, garrison artillery, and pensioners.

A detailed statement of the Russian forces is given in Appendix C, but of course all of these were not available. Immediately disposable to meet the invasion there were:—

First Line

About
First Army of the West 126,000
Second ” ” 40,000
Third ” ” 45,000
———— 211,000

Second Line

About
27th Infantry Division 7,500
Reserve Troops and Riga Garrison 37,500
——— 45,000
————
Total 256,000

To reinforce the fighting line there were brought up during the campaign—

About
From Finland 14,000
” the Turkish frontier 44,000
” the Crimea 5,000
Militia, Recruits, Cossacks, etc. 90,000
——— 153,000
————
Total actually employed 409,000
————

The last item can only be a very rough estimate. It is, however, certain that the large figures given in some authorities bear no proportion to the numbers of reinforcements which actually reached the front. It is of course obvious that the entire armed strength of Russia cannot be reckoned as opposed to Napoleon. The Asiatic, Caucasian and Crimea troops could at best only furnish small detachments.

The First and Second Armies had received at the hands of Barclay a fairly complete army-corps organisation, each corps containing two infantry divisions, a brigade or division of cavalry, and two brigades of artillery, with a battery of horse artillery attached to the cavalry. The Third Army and the Army of the Danube were still organised in the main on the old system of mixed divisions.

The characteristics of the Russian soldier have never varied. He was and is endowed with remarkable endurance and courage, but is comparatively unintelligent. In 1812 illiteracy was practically universal.

The conditions of service were bad. The period was twenty-five years, and brutal methods were often necessary to compel the recruits to leave the homes which they would probably never see again. Life in the ranks was hard, and only the fact that it was probably no harder than the existence of the average peasant could have rendered it endurable. The men were well clothed, for obvious reasons; but they were in general ill-fed, ill-lodged, ill-cared-for, and practically unpaid. The methods of maintaining discipline were brutal, and if in theory military service meant emancipation from serfdom, in practice the men were treated as slaves. It is all to their honour that they made and make such good soldiers.

The great characteristic of Russian troops is their extraordinary solidity and imperturbability under the most terrible punishment. A Russian army hardly ever dissolves under the influence of defeat; it must literally be battered to pieces. A good example of this was afforded at Zorndorf in 1758, when Frederick the Great gained a Cadmean success over a largely raw, badly trained and equipped, and ill-led Russian army not greatly superior in number to his own. He nearly destroyed both wings of the Russian host, but the centre stood firm, rallied the survivors, fought doggedly until nightfall, and lumbered defiantly away with some show of equality. The campaign of 1812 was to afford further proof of these characteristics.

There is a tendency to regard the Russian soldiers as generally large men, but there is abundant evidence that this was not the case. An English observer, writing about 1854, describes them as usually undersized, but they were doubtless hardy enough. The Guards were picked men. The cavalry, artillery, light infantry and grenadiers absorbed the best of the remaining recruits; the ordinary line regiments, with very inadequate means, had to assimilate and train the poorest of the available material.

The officers, as a class, were not capable of adequately training the fine material at their disposal. There were honourable exceptions, but at his best the Russian regimental officer was hardly the equal of his opponent of corresponding rank, though often, perhaps, a better linguist and a finer social figure. The Guards, as a whole, obtained the best officers, and after them the pick went to the cavalry and artillery, while the line infantry regiments were often very badly off. The ordinary battalion and company leaders frequently lacked all but the most elementary military instruction. Appointment and promotion were too often due to Court favour, female influence or corruption. The officers were, as a class, indolent. Too often they were not at the head of their men; their private carriages or sledges swelled the trains to enormous proportions, while the fighting line was weakened by the numbers of men detailed for their service. Gambling and drunkenness were very prevalent, and personal cowardice by no means uncommon, as Duke Eugen of Württemberg and Löwenstern testify. It is fair to add that defects such as these existed more or less in all armies of the period, but the Russian army has always been badly or inadequately officered.

In the higher ranks the conditions were not more satisfactory. There was a superabundance of general officers, but their quality often left much to be desired, and appointments were frequently due to other causes than military efficiency. This was, it is true, not especially the case in 1812. Alexander, presumably with the assistance of Barclay de Tolly, seems to have made a very fair choice of corps commanders, and several of the divisional leaders later acquired a well-deserved renown.

The foreign officers were a most important element. Germany furnished the largest contingent, but there were many French émigrés, as the Duc de Richelieu, Langeron, and St. Priest, and at least one Italian, the Marquis Paulucci. It may fairly be said of them that their general intellectual and scientific level was higher than that of the native officers. The latter were naturally bitterly jealous; and the foreigners rarely receive justice at the hands of popular Russian writers. It is humiliating to find even Tolstoï stooping to perpetuate these jealousies and employing the term “German” in an obviously contemptuous sense. Many of these foreigners did excellent work for Russia in 1812—though it is true that Phull, perhaps the most prominent of them, was an unpractical dreamer.

Mikhail Bogdanovich, Baron Barclay de Tolly, Minister of War and Commander-in-Chief of the First Army of the West at the outbreak of hostilities, was himself in some sense a foreigner, and seems to have been regarded as one, much to his misfortune, by the ultra-Russian officers. He was a Livonian by birth, and ultimately of Scottish extraction, being descended from a member of the family of Barclay of Towie, who had settled in Livonia in the seventeenth century. In 1812 General Barclay de Tolly was fifty-one years of age. His rise in the army had at first been very slow, owing to his unassuming character and to lack of influence; but his skill and courage as a divisional leader in 1807 and 1809, especially displayed in his march across the frozen Baltic in the latter year, had brought him to the front rank in the Russian councils. His reorganisation of the Russian army in 1810-12 will probably constitute his best title to fame. The published Russian documents bear emphatic witness to his industry, energy, and scientific spirit. His deficiencies in high command are to be attributed partly to inexperience in handling large masses of troops—an inexperience which he shared with all but a very few contemporary leaders. He was overburdened with work, being War Minister as well as general, and was constantly harassed by the insubordination, sometimes verging upon mutiny, of his assistants. His personal character stands very high. Patriotism and devotion to duty were to him a religion; and he was one of the few men in Russia who rose above narrowly patriotic views. His scorn of personal profit and ease do him the highest honour, since they were shared by few indeed of the men about him. Alexander’s trust in him never seems really to have faltered. The dreamy, romantic, crowned knight-errant and the simple, devoted soldier of his country had indeed much in common. Russia has had few sons to compare with Barclay de Tolly; and it is not to her credit that his worth has been so little appreciated.

FIELD-MARSHAL PRINCE BARCLAY DE TOLLY
General, War Minister, and Commander of the First Army of the West in 1812

General Prince Peter Ivanovich Bagration, commander of the Second Army of the West, was a man of different stamp. He was descended from the Armenian royal line of the Bagratidae; and to his exalted rank his rapid rise in the service was largely due. Though only born in 1765, he was a major-general in 1795. At the same time Bagration’s abilities were considerable enough to have ensured his rise under any circumstances. Suvórov had a high opinion of him; and the great leader’s judgment cannot be lightly set aside. Bagration was essentially a fighter: his tactics were usually influenced by his combative instincts; and his excitable temperament rendered him reckless of his person. His impatient temper rendered him an intractable colleague for the calm and methodical Barclay; and the latter’s courtesy and deference to the senior who had come under his orders did not always relieve their strained relations. On the whole, it would seem that Bagration possessed better strategic insight than his comrade; but his tactical ideas were not always happy. Having regard to his impetuosity, it was, perhaps, fortunate for Russia that he was not, as his admirers wished, placed in supreme command. But in pressing the French retreat his fiery energy would have been invaluable; and from this point of view his death was a national disaster. It is but due to his memory to say that he really appears to have been a man of too high and noble a character to condescend to wilful insubordination or intrigue; his intractability was the outcome of temporary ill-temper, as were his occasional unjust remarks concerning Barclay. Towards the end of their association relations between the two chiefs improved; and, on one occasion at least Bagration openly testified to his regard for Barclay.

General Count Alexander Petrovich Tormazov, the commander of the Third Army of the West, does not appear to have been a man of any exceptional ability. His early successes were due to numerical superiority; but he then unduly dispersed his forces, and was in his turn overwhelmed. At Gorodeczna he would probably have been destroyed but for the methodical slowness of his opponents.

General Prince Mikhail Hilarionovich Golénischev-Kutuzov, who in August became Commander-in-Chief of all the Russian armies in the field, was a veteran of sixty-seven years, of which fifty-two had been spent in arms. He was certainly a man of ability, both political and military; and his practical experience of war was great, though largely acquired in service against Polish guerrillas and Turkish irregulars. Though he had been nominal Commander-in-Chief at Austerlitz, his reputation had scarcely suffered; for it was well known that he had exercised practically no authority, which had been usurped by the young Tzar and his confidants. That he could take advantage of his opponents’ blunders had been demonstrated at Dürrenstein in 1805, and on the Danube in 1811. But in 1812 Kutuzov was too old for the emergency; and wounds and infirmity had diminished his bodily activity. Even in the Turkish war this had been noticeable. As an ultra-Russian he was able to command more loyal support than Barclay. His conduct of the battle of Borodino was at least energetic, and his subsequent strategy sound; but during the French retreat his lack of enterprise was evident. His last campaign made him Field-Marshal and Prince of Smolensk, but can hardly be said to have enhanced his reputation.

FIELD-MARSHAL PRINCE GOLÉNISCHEV-KUTUZOV
Commander-in-chief of the Russian Armies in 1812

General Baron Levin Bennigsen, the stout antagonist of Napoleon in 1806-1807, was for a time Kutuzov’s principal assistant; but the two did not work well together, and eventually Bennigsen was retired. Bennigsen, a Hanoverian soldier of fortune, was as old as Kutuzov, but much more energetic. He appears to have been a selfish and jealous, but able, man, and in the following year once more did Russia good service. Barclay, according to Löwenstern, said of him, that despite his ability, he was a “veritable pest” to the army, owing to his egoism and envy; and this view is certainly borne out by a perusal of Bennigsen’s unreliable and self-laudatory memoirs.

General Matvei Ivanovich Platov, Ataman of the Cossacks of the Don, is probably better known to British readers than any of his colleagues. He was a burly, genial officer, uniting to considerable military talents the daring and good-humour which were even more important in the eyes of his wild followers. He was an ideal leader of irregulars; his ceaseless activity and energy will presently be more apparent.

Admiral Pavel Vasilievich Chichagov, Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Danube, is a somewhat remarkable figure in Russian history. He perhaps owed some of his characteristics to his frequent association with Englishmen. He seems to have been somewhat impetuous and excitable; and certainly possessed a very independent temper, not hesitating to speak his mind to his despotic master. A seaman and diplomatist, placed in command of a land army at a great crisis, it would not have been strange had he failed badly, but this was far from being the case. Once clear of the Turkish embroglio he brought his army to the front with all speed; and though, as a general, too slow, he carried out his operations with a steady pertinacity, refusing to be diverted by contradictory orders. For Napoleon’s escape at the Berezina he was only very partially responsible; but the entire blame was laid upon him by the hasty injustice of his countrymen, and his career ended in voluntary exile many years later. It is not pleasant to find his name still rancorously assailed. The Tzar Alexander II was of a different opinion; one of the first ships of the Russian ironclad navy was named Chichagov.

Of the advisers who surrounded and influenced—not always for his good—the Tzar, the most prominent was the Prussian Phull. He had occupied an important position on the Prussian staff in the fatal year 1806, a fact which should surely have warned Alexander against his counsels. Certainly none but the Tzar had any confidence in him, and his utter lack of real military capacity was shown in the famous project of the camp at Drissa.

Of the staff-officers the most notable were Major-General Alexei Petrovich Yermólov and Colonel Baron Charles Toll. The former was an extraordinary personality, who seems to have retained more barbarian characteristics than any European military leader of modern times. He was a man of great courage, considerable ability, and remarkable will-power; but of a savage and unstable disposition. He could be guilty of gross cruelty to prisoners of war, and later, as Viceroy of the Caucasus, relied, as he admitted with cynical frankness, upon a policy of indiscriminate massacre. Yet he was a kind and considerate commander, beloved by his troops, and not ungenerous in his treatment of subordinates. This treacherous side of his character would induce him to intrigue against a rival, with whom he would then suddenly become reconciled on some impulse of generosity. He intrigued against Barclay, but wept bitterly when that ill-used chief left the army. It may have been hypocrisy, as Löwenstern says; but it really has more resemblance to one of those impulses which civilised men can hardly understand, but which are characteristic of barbaric natures, such as Yermólov’s. Yermólov’s policy of massacre failed to pacify Caucasia, and his successor Paskievich declared it to have been a gross blunder. Nevertheless, Yermólov has continued to this day to be the subject of somewhat indiscriminate eulogy. It is perhaps better to take the opinion of men who knew him. Barclay’s was terse and to the point: “An able man, but false and intriguing.” Alexander’s was pithy: “His heart is as black as his boot.” Clausewitz, who was little associated with him, admitted his ability.

Toll was a scientific soldier of considerable attainments, and played a distinguished part during the years 1812-1815.

Of the officers who, during the campaign, commanded detachments or army corps several were men of real distinction.

General Mikhail Andreïevich Miloradovich—“the Russian Murat”—was in charge of the advance-guard which pressed the French retreat. The Russian documents show that he was hardly so much the mere swordsman as Tolstoï would make him. Both in 1812 and 1813 Miloradovich distinguished himself greatly, showing himself to be as admirable in rear-guard command as he was in the leading of the pursuit.

Lieutenant-General Count Peter Wittgenstein, the German commander of the 1st Army Corps, gained considerable renown by his independent operations against Napoleon’s left wing. In high command he always failed; but as a corps commander he was equal to most of the French marshals, and, though frequently rash and inconsiderate, was never lacking in stubbornness and energy.

General Dmitri Sergeievich Dokhturov, commanding the 6th Corps, had served with distinction as a divisional leader in 1805, 1806 and 1807; and reaped fresh laurels in 1812. His conduct before and during the battle of Maloyaroslavetz reflected the highest credit upon him, and may be said in effect to have sealed the fate of the retreating Napoleonic host.

Lieutenant-General Nikolai Nikolaievich Raievski, the commander of the 7th Corps, gained a reputation little inferior to that earned by Dokhturov. During the critical days of August 14-16, when Napoleon was executing his famous flank march on Smolensk, Raievski’s ready acceptance of responsibility and fine resolution ensured the defence of the city, and gave Barclay and Bagration time to concentrate. His action undoubtedly saved the Russians from severe defeat, if not, indeed, from crushing and irretrievable disaster.

Lieutenant-General von der Osten-Sacken, commanding the reserves of the Third Army, was detailed by Admiral Chichagov to guard his rear against Schwarzenberg in November, while he himself marched to hold the crossings of the Berezina. He executed his task with unfailing courage and energy, though opposed to greatly superior numbers. Though an elderly man, his fighting energy was great. In the two following years he added to his reputation as a dauntless and hard-fighting commander.

None of the other Russian corps commanders was accorded the opportunity of rendering such eminent service as these three; but none, whatever his other defects, showed himself deficient at need in that stubbornness which was probably the most necessary of all qualities when opposed to Napoleon.

Nor can any serious fault be found with the majority of the divisional commanders. Conspicuous among them were Konovnitzin, Neverovski, and the young Prince Eugen of Württemberg, who next year gained a great reputation as chief of the 2nd Corps. Among those who later rose to the highest rank may be mentioned Voronzov, a brave, capable, and altogether estimable man, the hero of the terrific struggle on the plateau of Craonne in 1814, and thirty years later Viceroy of the Caucasus. Also, in command of one of Raievski’s divisions was a difficult-tempered, vain, and jealous young major-general, who in after years was to achieve a European renown—Paskievich, presently to be Field-Marshal Paskievich of Erivan and Prince of Warsaw. Another prominent figure was that of the youthful Major-General Count Kutaïsov, who commanded the artillery of Barclay’s army. Though only twenty-eight years of age, he does not appear to have been unfitted for his post; all who came in contact with him bear witness to his tireless energy. Certainly the Russian losses in artillery were very slight, and to Kutaïsov must part at least of the credit be given. He ended his brief and brilliant career on the field of Borodino while leading a successful counter-attack.

Of the Russian army as a whole it is to be said that there were too many generals entitled by their rank to high command, and whom it was deemed necessary to placate by giving them commands. At Borodino, besides the general officers on the staffs of Barclay and Bagration, Bennigsen was present as Chief-of-Staff of all the Russian armies; Konovnitzin was “general of service,” and there were others. Miloradovich commanded two army corps under Barclay, and General Gorchakov was also on the field in a somewhat undefined capacity—all these in addition to the Commander-in-Chief and the leaders of the two armies. Most of them were useless on the field, for Barclay, Bagration, and Kutuzov naturally sent orders direct to the corps and divisional commanders. In 1813 matters were even worse. In order to employ as many as possible of the ambitious general officers a practice was adopted of combining corps in pairs. In this fashion a force of about 35,000 men was burdened with more than thirty generals and three distinct staffs! In 1812 the confusion at head-quarters, owing to the presence of unattached generals or relatives of the Tzar, was often great, and that disaster did not ensue was more than once due to something like sheer good fortune. Alexander also committed what might have been a fatal error in not giving one general precedence over another when acting together. Barclay and Bagration often found it hard to agree; and though Chichagov and Tormazov, and, apparently, Wittgenstein and Steingell, succeeded in working together, it was fortunate that trouble did not arise.

[CHAPTER IV]

THE FIRST STAGE OF THE CAMPAIGN. OPERATIONS FROM KOVNO TO VITEBSK

The Russian frontier in 1812, from the Black Sea to where the River Bug issues from Galicia, was practically as it is to-day. The ten Polish Governments, however, then formed the greater part of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw: the border therefore stopped short at the Bug and the lower Niemen below Grodno. The Niemen, rising near the city of Minsk, flows roughly westward for about 150 miles to Grodno, thence about 80 miles northward to Kovno, and then some 110 miles westward into the Kurisches Haff. From Grodno to Kovno the channel is deeply sunk and difficult to cross. There were in 1812 bridges at Grodno and Tilsit; but at Kovno the Königsberg-Vilna high-road was served only by a ferry. For the last 60 miles of its course the Niemen is in Prussian territory. It thus became extremely important for Napoleon as soon as he had occupied its right bank. He had already collected a large flotilla of gunboats and barges, under Rear-Admiral Baste, in the ports of the Frisches and Kurisches Haffs, and was able therefore to bring immense quantities of supplies from his advanced depôts to Kovno and thence to Vilna.

For about 100 miles south-westward from Grodno there was no natural frontier; thence to the Austrian border it was formed by the Bug, which, issuing from Galicia below the town of Sokal, flows northward for some 110 miles to Brest-Litovsk, and then north-westward for 70 miles more to what was in 1812 the Polish border. For nearly 100 miles near Brest-Litovsk the Pinsk Marshes close in upon the river. The Austro-Russian border need not be considered, for it was neutralised; Schwarzenberg operated only as an auxiliary, in Poland. Trade continued as usual, and when Admiral Chichagov’s army passed close along the frontier on its way to attack Schwarzenberg it was not molested by Russia’s nominal enemies.

The first provinces on the right bank of the Niemen entered by the Grand Armée were Courland to the north and the various districts which had once formed the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to the southward. Lithuania was and is a region of woods and marshy plain land, broken in places, and intersected in every direction by streams flowing in deeply sunken channels. In the south there stretched inland from the Bug the famous marshes of Pinsk, one of the largest tracts of fenland in the world, extending as it does for some 300 miles east and west, by over 100 north and south. The soil, even when not actually swampy, was generally soft, and there were hardly any good roads. Towns were few; the population was sparse and wretchedly poor.

At distances varying from about 120 to over 300 miles eastward of the Bug and Niemen a second natural line is formed by the Düna and the Dnieper. The Düna rises near the Volga, flows roughly south-west to Vitebsk, there turns west-north-west and runs for nearly 300 miles to the Baltic at Riga. Above Vitebsk it is fairly often fordable during the summer heats. In 1812 it was bridged at Vitebsk and Dünaburg, half-way to Riga, but, since the left bank is generally higher than the right between these places, the river does not afford a good line of defence.

From the Düna at Vitebsk southward to the Dnieper at Orsha is a gap of about 45 miles. At Orsha the Dnieper, one of the great rivers of Europe, turns to the southward, to flow for 800 miles into the Black Sea. Seventy miles above Orsha is Smolensk, where in 1812 there was a bridge. At Mohilev, 50 miles below Orsha, there was another. The river is rarely fordable even during the summer. Its tributary the Berezina, which was a most important strategic feature in the campaign, flows towards it on the east at an acute angle for 200 miles, joining at a point nearly due east of Warsaw and west of Orel. In 1812 there were bridges at Borisov and Bobruisk, but in general the river is fordable in summer. The right bank is usually higher than the left.

Napoleon’s advanced bases were the places on the Vistula, especially Danzig and Warsaw—though Danzig was infinitely the most important. The road from Danzig to the frontier divided at Wehlau; the left branch going by Tilsit through Courland to Mitau and Riga, and thence to St. Petersburg; the right by Insterburg and Gumbinnen to the Niemen at Kovno, thence by Vilna, Ochmiana, Minsk, Borisov and Orsha, to Smolensk. From Mitau and Riga two roads converged on Jakobstädt, and then passed along the right bank of the Düna, by Dünaburg, Drissa, Desna and Polotsk, to Vitebsk, whence two or three roads led to Smolensk. From Polotsk and Smolensk ran roads north-westward to St. Petersburg.

From Vilna a road led by Sventsiani and Glubokoie to Desna and Polotsk. From near Sventsiani a branch went to Dünaburg, and from Glubokoie another fork led by Lepel and Bechenkowiczi to Vitebsk. Cross-roads connected Vitebsk with Orsha, and Lepel with the Smolensk-Minsk road, half-way from Orsha to Bobr. From Orsha the main road to Kiev ran down the right bank of the Dnieper through Mohilev and Staroi Bykhov. From Bobr another road led to Bobruisk and thence into the Orsha-Mohilev-Kiev highway. A third road went from Bobruisk to Minsk by way of Igumen.

The road eastward from Warsaw forked some 30 miles out, separating into two branches, which united again at Novi Svergen, 250 miles farther on. The southern branch proceeded by Brest-Litovsk, Slonim and Nesvizh; the northern one passed by Bielsk, Bielostok, Grodno and Novogrodek. From Novi Svergen the road ran nearly north-eastward to Minsk, about 60 miles farther on. From Brest-Litovsk a road branched off to Lutsk, through the Pinsk Marshes. At Kobrin, some 30 miles farther on, a road pierced the marshes eastward, turning to the right about 30 miles short of Pinsk, and eventually coming out in the direction of Lutsk and Ostrog. A branch connected Pinsk with this road, and from Pinsk another highway led through the fens northward to Nesvizh. From Slonim a road led northward to Vilna, intersecting the Grodno road about a third of the way out, and another cross-road connected the two Warsaw roads, east of Grodno, by way of Volkovisk. Finally a road led from Nesvizh by Slutsk to Bobruisk, and from the latter place another passed through the eastern end of the Pinsk fens by Mozyr-on-Pripet to Kiev. There were, of course, many minor roads or tracks, but these were practically all that could be used for military purposes, and most of them were inferior. From Smolensk eastward the road system became, so far as the campaign was concerned, very simple, consisting merely of a single trunk leading to Moscow.

Russian high-roads are commonly of considerable breadth, so that it was possible for vehicles to move upon them several abreast. Both armies, however, were so encumbered by immense trains that their columns covered enormous lengths of road.

With the exception of Moscow, Warsaw and Riga, there were no large towns, in the modern sense of the word, within the theatre of war, and even Riga can scarcely be regarded as one. Moscow had somewhat over 200,000 inhabitants, Warsaw about half as many. Vilna, Grodno, Minsk, Vitebsk and Smolensk had each from 20,000 to 30,000 inhabitants; Kovno, Dünaburg, Mitau, Brest-Litovsk, Bielostok, Mohilev and Bobruisk perhaps from 15,000 to 20,000; Polotsk possibly 15,000. Borisov, Orsha, Bobr, Smorgoni and many other places described as towns were merely villages—not often large villages, according to modern ideas. From Moscow to Smolensk, a distance of over 250 English miles, there were only three small towns,—Viasma, Gzhatsk and Dorogobuzh—and the largest of these had but about 5000 inhabitants.

While Napoleon was inspecting his depôts, completing the organisation of his water transport, and setting in train the formation and pushing to the front of his numerous reserve forces, the Grand Army, now practically secure from Russian attack, was moving up to the Niemen. By the 12th of June the advance-guard of the 10th Corps was at Tilsit, and the Imperial Guard and five army corps, besides three corps of the cavalry reserves, were steadily advancing behind towards the line of the Niemen between Tilsit and Kovno. The 5th and 8th Corps were in advance of Warsaw, and the 7th a little way in rear of it. The Emperor still expected that Bagration would invade the Grand Duchy, for on June 10th he wrote to Eugène on that hypothesis. He also appears to have anticipated that Bagration’s advance would be supported by at least a part of Barclay’s army. At all events he speaks of a possible attack upon Eugène, which indicates that he looked for something like a general encounter along his whole front.

He explained to Eugène that his echelon formation, with the left in advance, would enable him to take in flank the attack of the Russians directed against his right or centre. If Jerome were attacked, Eugène with the 4th and 6th Corps would be able to fall on the flank of the hostile columns, while if Eugène himself were assailed he could be supported at need by the whole left wing. All this certainly appears to point to the idea of a general Russian advance. Whether the somewhat complicated manœuvres anticipated by the Emperor took sufficiently into account the inexperience of Eugène and Jerome, and the frightful Polish tracks by which they would be obliged to move, may be doubted. Moreover, it is clear that their successful execution depended upon the Russian generals being so obliging as to play into Napoleon’s hands. The armies, it must be remembered, were not yet in touch, and the Russians had perfect freedom to manœuvre at will.

By June 18th Napoleon had about 320,000 men (Imperial Guard, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th and 10th Corps d’Armée, and 1st, 2nd and 3rd Reserve Cavalry Corps) concentrated on a front of about 130 miles from Tilsit south-westward to the Prusso-Polish frontier. Thence to Warsaw stood the 5th, 7th and 8th Corps and the 4th Cavalry Corps—80,000 men on a line of 80 miles. Finally, the Austrians, 34,000 strong, constituted the detached right flank-guard, marching from Zamosc by Lublin on Warsaw.

Total 434,000 combatants, 1076 guns.

The Russians were cantoned as follows: The First Army was strategically disposed in a main body, a reserve, and two semi-independent wings. The 1st Corps (Wittgenstein) constituted the right wing, about Rossieni, some 100 miles north-west of Vilna, and nearly opposite to Napoleon’s detached left flank-guard, under Macdonald, at Tilsit. About Lida, 60 miles south of Vilna, on the road to Slonim, stood the 6th Corps (Dokhturov) and the 3rd Cavalry Corps (Pahlen II), forming the left wing, under Dokhturov. The 2nd Corps (Baggohufwudt), the 3rd (Tuchkov I) and the 4th (Shuvalov) were guarding the line of the Niemen above and below Kovno, on a front of about 60 miles. The 1st Cavalry Corps (Uvarov) was at Vilkomirz, 40 miles north-north-west of Vilna, and the 2nd (Korff) at Smorgoni, nearly 50 miles on the road to Minsk. The 5th Corps (H.I.H. the Grand Duke Constantine) formed the general reserve at Sventsiani, about 45 miles north-east of Vilna. The “Flying Corps” of Cossacks under the Ataman Platov was pushed forward to the frontier about Grodno, 60 miles west of Lida. The First Army, including Platov, numbered some 126,000 men, including 19,000 regular cavalry and 584 guns.

Of the two army corps which composed the Second Army the 8th (Borozdin I) was at Volkovisk, 60 miles south-south-west of Lida, and the 7th (Raievski) at Novi Dvor, 20 miles farther south. The 4th Cavalry Corps (Sievers), and about 4000 Cossacks, under General Ilovaïski, connected the two. The newly formed 27th Division (Neverovski) which was marching from Moscow to join Bagration, had not yet passed Minsk. Including it the Second Army comprised about 47,000 men, including 7000 regular cavalry, and 168 guns.

The Third Army was widely dispersed and could not take the field for some weeks. It numbered in all perhaps 45,000 men.

Thus, owing to various causes—divided counsels, imperfect organisation, bad roads and especially the lack of any real command-in-chief—the Russian forces were, almost up to the very moment of hostile contact, in a state of dangerous dispersion. The secret history of the months during which Alexander had been at Vilna will probably never be accurately known. Dissension and intrigue were rampant in the Tzar’s personal entourage. Much valuable time was wasted in drafting and discussing plans of action, all impracticable, because based upon hypotheses which proved untenable. They all considerably underestimated Napoleon’s fighting strength, and appear to have assumed a concentration of the Russian forces about Vilna. There was great disorder in the higher commands. Barclay was nominally commander-in-chief, but Alexander frequently issued orders, through his adjutant, Prince Volkonski, over the head of the harassed War-Minister, while to make confusion worse confounded Phull, as Clausewitz expresses it, “sometimes put in his oar.” Contrary to the usually accepted belief, it appears that Barclay would have preferred to stand to fight, granted a favourable opportunity. The deciding factor in the situation seems to have been that almost at the last moment the Russian staff obtained better information as to the strength which Napoleon had with him in Prussia.

At all events the party of prudence finally obtained the upper hand in the Tzar’s councils. The policy of retreating before the invader had been so often discussed that there was nothing unexpected in the resolution which was adopted. It was determined to draw back the whole First Army at least as far as Sventsiani. All the corps commanders were warned to be ready to retreat thither immediately upon receiving orders, except Wittgenstein, who was given permission to anticipate them if pressed by a rapid advance of Napoleon’s extreme left wing over the Niemen. Platov, it was vaguely supposed, would be able to threaten Napoleon’s communications, and would be supported by Bagration from Volkovisk. Tormazov, with the Third Army, was to retreat on Kiev if hard pressed; but, if not, was to leave General Sacken with his incomplete division to observe the Austrian frontier, and with the rest of his army to fall upon the right of the forces which were opposed to Bagration. General Okunev, in his commentaries upon the war, suggests that Bagration and Tormazov should have effected a junction and advanced in force against Napoleon’s communications while he was engaged in front with Barclay. As, however, Napoleon could detach 80,000 men, under Eugène, to support the 114,000 whom he already had in the Grand Duchy, Bagration, Tormazov and Platov would eventually be outnumbered by at least two to one; while Napoleon would still have possessed a double superiority of numbers over Barclay. In fact the Russians were so enormously outmatched at every point that retreat was the only sensible strategy. Napoleon, it is true, assumed that the Russians would stand to fight. This was partly, no doubt, due to mistaken but not unreasonable calculations as to their state of preparation, but also largely, it is to be feared, to the obstinate optimism which during his latter years became something like an acute mental disease with him. He had developed a fatal habit of believing that his enemies would always play into his hands.

Accordingly, still proceeding on the assumption that Bagration would invade the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, while Barclay stood fast to oppose his own advance upon Vilna, the French Emperor decided to operate the passage of the Niemen close to Kovno. Kovno lies at the confluence of the Vilia, the river of Vilna, with the Niemen, and was therefore admirably adapted for the collection of stores by water from Danzig and Königsberg, and forwarding them to Vilna as soon as that place and the surrounding country were in Napoleon’s power. In point of fact the Vilia proved too sinuous and difficult to be of much utility, but this could hardly be known at the time, and in any case did not greatly affect the value of Kovno as a base. The forest of Pilwiski or Wilkowiski, extending over a considerable area on the bank of the river opposite Kovno, furnished an excellent screen for Napoleon’s operations. Finally, by bridging the river and debouching rapidly in the direction of Vilna, Barclay might be separated from his detached right wing under Wittgenstein. All this obviously assumed that the Russians would remain stationary.

On June 22nd Jerome was directed to be at Augustowo on the 25th. On that day his three corps were extended along the Warsaw-Augustowo road, and the head of the 5th Corps, which was leading, was nearly 50 miles away. The 8th was still farther behind, and the 7th as yet in the neighbourhood of Warsaw, awaiting the Austrians, who were slowly advancing from Lublin. Napoleon was probably misinformed as to distances, and certainly had not taken into full consideration the wretched Polish roads. He apparently calculated upon being able to throw his main body suddenly across the Niemen at Kovno, deal a smashing blow at Barclay and then wheel round to crush Bagration.

Fortunately for the Russians they had now decided to do the right thing, and had no intention of awaiting their enemies’ pleasure. The three corps on the Niemen were drawn back to Vilna, leaving only a light cavalry screen along the right bank. Wittgenstein retired from Rossieni to Keidani, 40 miles nearer Vilna. On June 23rd, therefore, Barclay had four corps echeloned on a line of 70 miles, nearly two marches from the Niemen at its nearest point; and, as all were ready to retreat on Sventsiani at the shortest notice, Napoleon’s plans were already half disconcerted. Irresolution, however, clung to the Russian counsels, and Dokhturov was still left in a dangerously isolated position at Lida.

On the 22nd Napoleon, being himself at Wilkowiski, about 40 miles from Kovno, drafted a proclamation to the army which may be regarded as the official declaration of war. It was of the usual Napoleonic type, chiefly compounded of false statements and prophecies which were never fulfilled. Mr. Hereford George is probably correct in pronouncing that “a more unfortunate document was perhaps never penned.”

On the afternoon of the 23rd Napoleon had under his hand opposite Kovno in the Pilwiski Forest some 214,000 men, comprising the Imperial Guard, the reserve parks and engineers, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Corps d’Armée, and the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Corps of Reserve Cavalry. At Tilsit, in line with the main body, was the 10th Corps, under Macdonald. Eugène, with the 4th and 6th Corps, was still some 60 miles to the right rear, and could hardly reach the Niemen near Kovno before the 28th. General Bonnal appears to consider that his absence materially contributed to the failure of the Emperor’s strategy, but it is a little difficult entirely to agree with him. Even had the situation been as Napoleon imagined it, with the Russians extended in a long, thin line upon the frontier, Eugène’s absence could not have fatally influenced results. The invaders, with their overwhelming numerical superiority, could not fail of success. Without Eugène Napoleon had 247,000 men in all opposed to Barclay’s 120,000. Bagration could hardly under any circumstances have gained more than a temporary success over the head of the long column of divisions marching from Lublin to Augustowo, and as yet not disquieted by Tormazov on its rear. Given that Reynier and Schwarzenberg were forced to turn back to face Tormazov—as did ultimately happen—Jerome would still have over 60,000 regulars against Bagration’s 36,000; and Eugène’s retardation would place him in a favourable position for supporting him. It is even permissible to argue that Eugène’s absence was rather a favourable circumstance than otherwise, since the knowledge that Napoleon was short of over 70,000 men might have induced Barclay to stand to give battle, which was precisely what Napoleon desired.

As a fact the situation was quite other than Napoleon envisaged it. Had all his corps been in position to time, the manœuvre of Vilna would still have failed. Had Jerome, with his whole force, reached Augustowo on the 25th June, as contemplated, he could not have reached Grodno before the 27th. Volkovisk is nearly 50 miles farther on, and Bagration evacuated it on the 28th to retreat on Minsk. It was absolutely impossible for Jerome to reach him. Of Barclay’s corps, the 1st was nearly two days’ march from the Niemen, and Wittgenstein had permission to retreat as soon as he had information of the French passage of the river. Baggohufwudt, Tuchkov and Shuvalov were still farther back, out of touch with the French, who could not reach them in less than two forced marches, even if they stood fast. Dokhturov alone was somewhat isolated, and ran considerable risk of being cut off from the main body. Still even had Dokhturov been cut from Barclay it is highly probable that the course of events would have been little different. A junction of the two Armies of the West would have eventually been effected, and it is possible that Barclay, short of 20,000 men, would not have made, as he did, at least one very perilous halt on his march to Smolensk.

To conclude, when once the Russian commanders had determined to adopt a policy of steady retreat, and to adhere to it with more or less resolution, the campaign may almost be said to have decided itself. Napoleon was ever striving to obtain contact with his elusive foes and to fight the great battle which should crush the heart out of their resistance. But only thrice all through the advance was he able to establish this contact, and in each case the Russians drew away without having sustained decisive defeat. The first operations on the Niemen were typical of most of those which were to follow.

On June 23rd all the troops under Napoleon’s immediate command were nearly opposite Kovno. Napoleon gave the strictest orders that only light cavalry were to approach the river; infantry, artillery and heavy cavalry were to be kept under cover in the forest, so as to conceal from the enemy until the last moment the exact direction in which the blow was to be dealt. Meanwhile the river was reconnoitred for a point of passage, and a bend between Kovno and the village of Poniemon, a little higher up, was selected by General Haxo, Davout’s chief of engineers.

At daybreak on the 23rd Napoleon in person arrived in his travelling carriage at the bivouacs of the 1st Cavalry Corps. He descended at that of the 6th Polish Lancers, and, still anxious to conceal everything from the Russians until the last moment, removed his famous Guard uniform and cocked hat, and donned the coat of a Polish officer—an example followed by the staff-officers with him. Count Soltyk, an officer of the Lancers, has minutely described the episode. Napoleon’s strong common sense appears in his refusal of the heavy Polish cavalry shako, and acceptance of a cap instead. He then rode forward to a village directly opposite Kovno, and carefully reconnoitred the place from the windows of the house of the village doctor. Returning to the Lancers’ bivouac, he made a hasty meal, chatting meanwhile with the Polish officers, and especially asking if their uniform suited him. He then resumed his own garments and rode off to reconnoitre the course of the river elsewhere. He approved Haxo’s selection of Poniemon, and issued elaborate orders for the passage. They obviously imply that vigorous resistance was anticipated; nothing was yet known of the Russian retirement on Vilna. They also contain much minute regulation of detail, which might well have been left to Haxo or Davout.

During the afternoon and evening the 1st Corps was brought up to Poniemon, whither the pontoon trains, under General Eblé, were also despatched. Three bridges, about 300 yards apart, were to be thrown across. As soon as it was completely dark—that is to say, about 10 p.m.—General Morand, the commander of the 1st Division, crossed in person with three companies of Voltigeurs and one of Sappers, who were ferried over in boats. As they were disembarking they were detected by the nearest Russian picket—a detachment of the Hussars of Yelisabetgrad. They rode up to the mustering Voltigeurs, and their leader challenged in French: “Qui vive?”

“France!” came the reply.

“What do you do here?” asked the Russian officer.

“You’ll soon see!” was the answer; and the bold officer turned rein, to report to his superiors that the long-expected invasion had begun at last. His troopers emptied their carbines in the direction of the French party as they rode away, but apparently without effect; and the Voltigeurs did not reply, Napoleon having issued orders that there was to be no firing except in case of extreme necessity. The bridges were completed by about 1 a.m. on the 24th, and Davout’s corps began to defile across. There was no resistance; the only approach to fighting consisted in the interchange of a few shots between the advanced French troops and the rear-guards of the retreating Russian cavalry regiments. The day broke as the passage was in progress: it continued practically without intermission all through the 24th and 25th. As a military spectacle it has, perhaps, never been surpassed; but the ease with which it had been effected was probably by no means entirely pleasing to Napoleon. He must have been unpleasantly conscious that the Russians had no intention of delivering themselves into his hands, though he probably hoped that they would stand to fight in advance of Vilna.

In the morning of the 24th Davout’s 1st Light Cavalry Brigade, under Pajol, occupied Kovno, expelling the Cossack squadron which was the only garrison; and in the afternoon Napoleon himself transferred his head-quarters thither. He ordered a permanent pile bridge to be constructed at the ferry, and threw another bridge over the Vilia, just above its confluence with the Niemen.

The news of the invasion reached Alexander the same evening while he was at a garden party at General Bennigsen’s mansion near Vilna. Next day he announced it to his army in a proclamation, and to the nation at large in another, addressed to Marshal Saltikov, Military Governor of St. Petersburg. The tone of both was worthy of the occasion, and contrasted strongly with the arrogant and theatrical ring of that of Napoleon.

Orders were issued to all the corps commanders to retreat on Sventsiani. It was recognised that Platov alone could hardly achieve any serious damage to Napoleon’s communications, and he also was directed to retire on Sventsiani by way of Lida and Smorgoni. Bagration was warned not to allow himself to be cut from Minsk. All the orders reached their destination safely, except those to Major-General Dorokhov who, with the advance-guard of the 4th Corps, was at Orani, south-west of Vilna. The 3rd and 4th Corps retired leisurely to the suburbs of Vilna, which Barclay did not intend to evacuate until it became absolutely necessary.

By the evening of the 25th the whole French army was over the Niemen and pushing forward to Vilna. Murat opened the march with the 1st and 2nd Cavalry Corps. Behind were the 1st and 3rd Corps, the 3rd Cavalry Corps, and the Imperial Guard, while the 2nd Corps had crossed the Vilia at Kovno and was marching along its right bank, thus forming the flank-guard of the advance on Vilna, and threatening to cut off Wittgenstein towards Keidani. Davout and Ney had each detailed a foreign regiment to guard Kovno and the bridges. The 10th Corps was ordered to advance from Tilsit upon Rossieni, sweeping the right bank of the Niemen, and thus clearing the course of the river for Baste’s supply flotillas, which were now collecting at Tilsit, whence they were pushed forward to Kovno.

There was practically no fighting on the march to Vilna. The thin chain of Russian cavalry posts steadily retired as the French pressed forward: only a few shots were fired from time to time. Napoleon hoped for a battle at Vilna and the troops made forced marches day after day to attain the desired end, at great cost to themselves, for the weather was sultry, the roads were bad, and the provision trains were already falling to the rear. The men began to leave the ranks in order to forage for supplies, and the horses, ill-fed and over-worked, broke down and died in great numbers. Even the artillery was ill-horsed from the first, and the officers were forced to scour the country for draft animals, often with very little success. Barclay was in position before Vilna with the 3rd Corps and most of the 4th, and Baggohufwudt was in touch to the north; but Alexander and his suite had already left for Sventsiani, and Barclay was merely waiting until the French began to close. The stores which could not be carried off were destroyed, and at 4 a.m. on the 28th the 3rd and 4th Corps began to defile through the town. Barclay and his staff left about 1 p.m.; and the rear-guard followed, burning the bridge over the Vilia. Bruyère’s cavalry division, which was heading the French advance, came through the town before Barclay’s cavalry rear-guard was quite clear of the suburbs; and its leading regiment, the 8th Hussars, was charged and driven back, with the loss of several prisoners, by the Cossacks of the Imperial Guard. The Russian columns were well on their way to Sventsiani, and after three days of forced marching in tropical weather the French impulse had expended its force.

On the same day a more serious skirmish took place near Vilkomirz. Wittgenstein, falling back from Keidani, heard that Oudinot was marching up the right bank of the Vilia and, fearing that he might be anticipated at Vilkomirz, stationed his rear-guard, under Major-General Kulnev (4 battalions, 4 squadrons, 1 Cossack regiment and 6 guns), on the 27th at Develtova, requesting General Uvarov to support him with a regiment of Dragoons. Meanwhile the 1st Corps defiled through Vilkomirz on the Sventsiani road. As Kulnev, in his turn, was retiring through the place from Develtova, he was attacked by Castex with Oudinot’s advanced guard. The French cavalry charged the Russian Hussars and Cossacks and drove them into the town with considerable loss, but Kulnev succeeded in withdrawing his force across the Vilia, and burnt the bridge, and Castex could only cannonade the Russians until the arrival of infantry. Uvarov’s cavalry regiment, marching rather carelessly to join Kulnev along the river-bank, came under artillery fire and lost several men and horses. When Oudinot’s infantry began to arrive Kulnev followed his chief. He had lost about 300 men, including 240 prisoners. Oudinot reported a loss of 50 killed and wounded. The 2nd Corps occupied Vilkomirz, and bivouacked for the night some 2 miles on the Sventsiani road.

Napoleon himself entered Vilna in the afternoon of the 28th. Alexander had sent his aide-de-camp, General Balashov, with a final message to his opponent, offering to reopen negotiations if the French troops withdrew across the Niemen. Napoleon, with his usual dramatic instinct, received Balashov in the quarters which Alexander had lately quitted. Needless to say, nothing came of the interview. Napoleon regarded the message as an insult, or at best as an attempt to gain time. He merely wrote a long letter to Alexander repeating all his real or imagined grounds for the war. Danilevski says that Balashov was directed to tell Napoleon that if he declined to listen to Alexander’s last overtures he must expect war to the death. It is also said that Napoleon asked questions concerning the roads to Moscow. Balashov replied that there were several, and His Majesty might do as other monarchs had done, and choose. Charles XII, for example, had taken the road that led by way of Poltava!

Napoleon had, in fact, little reason for satisfaction. He had, as he hoped, debouched suddenly into the midst of his opponent’s line of defence; he had collected enormous forces upon his chosen point of attack, and had carefully concealed it until the last moment. His troops had made tremendous exertions to carry out his strategy. And yet hardly anything had in reality been achieved. He was in possession of his enemy’s empty head-quarters, and that was all. His army had suffered severely in the impetuous rush upon Vilna, while that of Russia had quietly withdrawn out of his reach. The carefully planned blow, which was to have been crushing, had been wasted upon the empty air.

On the 29th there was a violent thunderstorm, followed by five days of continuous rain. The results were most disastrous. Movements of troops, though much impeded, were not absolutely checked; but the vast trains on the Vilna-Kovno road were entirely disorganised. The bad roads and tracks became little better than quagmires. The horses broke down completely under the additional strain, especially since the country could supply very little fodder to replace that left behind in abandoned vehicles. The defects of the transport became evident. The waggons were too heavy for the bad Polish roads, and in order to forward any supplies at all they had to be replaced by country carts, which were only capable of carrying much smaller loads. The natural consequences were a shortage of food supplies, and much marauding in quest of them. The Lithuanians, whom the French were supposed to be freeing from the Russian yoke, were maltreated and plundered everywhere by their so-called deliverers. Requisitions, however unsparing, entirely failed to re-establish the wrecked transport. The army was so huge, its encumbrances so enormous, that the poverty-stricken country could not supply the number of draft animals needed. The artillery alone left 120 guns or more and hundreds of waggons at Vilna owing to lack of horses. The number of the latter lost may be conservatively estimated at 10,000; and some 30,000 soldiers were straggling about the country, marauding for food and committing every kind of outrage.

Napoleon himself remained in Vilna for over a fortnight. The 4th and 6th Corps had only just reached the Niemen, and it was absolutely necessary to bring up to the front the magazines from Königsberg. He also wished to organise Lithuania, or rather to exploit it. A provisional government of French partisans was set up at Vilna; garrisons were distributed; and officials placed over the various towns and districts. The first act of the Government was to order levies of horse and foot for Napoleon’s service; one cavalry regiment was to consist entirely of Lithuanian squires, and to be attached to the Imperial Guard. Otherwise the Government could exercise practically no civil functions; its duties were simply such as arose from the military occupation of the country. The peasants were reduced to abject misery by endless requisitions, and by the lawless violence of the stragglers who swarmed everywhere. The French sous-préfet of Novi Troki, a place less than 20 miles from Vilna, was plundered and stripped by marauding soldiers on his way thither, and if such an event could take place within a day’s march of Napoleon’s head-quarters, the state of affairs farther afield may be imagined. Napoleon’s stringent orders against pillage and disorder were little better than useless. The pillage arose simply from lack of food, and the latter was the natural outcome of the fact that the expedition was too large to work in the existing conditions. Napoleon had taken immense pains to organise it, and up to a point he had foreseen and provided for everything. But he had not taken into full account physical difficulties: he had, amongst other blunders, organised a wheeled transport for which roads hardly existed, and he had failed to perceive that the vast magnitude of his enterprise automatically created fresh obstacles to success, or at any rate enormously increased those which already existed.

Though on reaching Vilna Napoleon must have realised that his strategy had already in part miscarried, he at once entered upon the execution of the second part of the plan—the crushing of Bagration’s army which, as he hoped, was already closely pressed by Jerome. As a fact Bagration left Volkovisk that very day for Minsk, while Jerome did not reach Grodno until the 30th. So far as Jerome was concerned, therefore, Bagration was in no danger, and it was only the vacillation at the Russian Imperial head-quarters which later brought him within measurable distance of destruction. There were other forces within Bagration’s sphere of operations which the French Emperor might hope to sweep also into his net. Platov, from Grodno, could hardly hope to reach the First Army with the French in force at Vilna; while the advance-guard of the 4th Corps, after waiting at Orani for orders until the 27th, was also isolated. A more important quarry than either of these, however, was Barclay’s detached left wing under Dokhturov, which had only just started from the neighbourhood of Lida, having of course received its orders last.

Napoleon therefore ordered the following movements: Oudinot, supported by Doumerc’s Cuirassier Division from Grouchy’s Corps, was to follow Wittgenstein from Vilkomirz towards Sventsiani. Murat, with Montbrun’s Cavalry Corps and Friant’s and Gudin’s Infantry Divisions, was directed to pursue Barclay’s central columns. Nansouty, with two of his three divisions and Morand’s Infantry Division, was directed upon Svir, nearly due east of Vilna, with the object of falling on the flank of Dokhturov’s column. Davout with his 4th and 5th Divisions, Pajol’s Cavalry Brigade, the Lancers of the Guard, Grouchy’s two remaining cavalry divisions, Valence’s Cuirassier Division from Nansouty’s Corps, and the Legion of the Vistula, about 45,000 men in all, was to advance upon Minsk and intercept the retreat of Bagration. Davout’s other light cavalry brigade (Bordesoulle) was sent south-westward from Vilna to scout in that direction, and on the 30th encountered Dorokhov’s detachment, which he took for the rear-guard of Baggohufwudt’s Corps. Dorokhov, seeing that French troops were now at Vilna, retreated southward in the hope of joining Platov and, ultimately, Bagration.

Meanwhile Davout and Dokhturov, advancing on converging lines, were rapidly approaching. Dokhturov was marching from Lida in two columns, and on the 30th his left flank-guard, consisting of a brigade of Pahlen’s cavalry, under General Kreutz, reached Ochmiana on the Vilna-Minsk road just as Pajol’s brigade was approaching from Vilna. The danger must, to the Russian generals, have appeared very great, and had they not shown extraordinary energy it would have been so, for although Davout’s infantry was considerably in rear of Pajol it could easily arrive next day and assail the left flank of Dokhturov’s column as it crossed the road. Dokhturov however, as on another and greater emergency, rose to the occasion. He called upon his men for a great effort; and on the 1st of July the 6th Corps and Pahlen’s cavalry crossed the Vilna-Minsk road just ahead of Davout’s advancing columns, and pressed on towards Sventsiani. There was some brisk skirmishing at Ochmiana between Kreutz and Pajol; but at night the bulk of Dokhturov’s force had reached Svir, after a splendid forced march of 28 miles on an execrable road, with a loss of only some scores of men and a few retarded baggage-waggons. During the march of the 2nd the trains were harassed by Nansouty’s advanced guard and a portion of them captured, but that evening Dokhturov was in line with the rest of the First Army about Sventsiani. His prompt decision, admirably seconded by the steadiness and fine marching of his troops, had extricated him safely from a very dangerous position.

Meanwhile Barclay and Wittgenstein had operated their retreat from Vilna and Vilkomirz with little difficulty, and with hardly any fighting. On the 2nd of July the First Army about Sventsiani numbered about 114,000 men; but the Tzar’s advisers had now definitely decided not to fight before reaching the Düna. The magazines which could not be carried away were burned; and on the 3rd the retreat was continued, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Corps retiring directly on Drissa, covered by a rear-guard under Korff, while Wittgenstein and Dokhturov fell back on the wings.

The retreat was conducted steadily and with no great haste. Alexander and Phull were impatient for the arrival of the army at Drissa, and the latter sent Clausewitz, afterwards the historian of the war, to hasten the march. Barclay, who knew better than Phull the demoralising effects of a hasty retreat, was very angry, and declined to hurry. On the 5th there was a slight action at Davigelishki between Sebastiani’s leading brigade under Subervie and Korff’s cavalry rear-guard. The French were repulsed, and Prince von Hohenlohe, the Colonel of the 3rd Württemberg Chasseurs, was captured. On the 6th and 8th, however, the Russians made night marches and distanced their pursuers; and on the 11th the whole of the Russian centre and left were at Drissa, while Wittgenstein was at Druia, a little lower down the Düna. There were at Drissa and Dünaburg 19 reserve battalions, all very weak, and 20 fairly strong depôt squadrons. Most of them were assigned to Wittgenstein, who formed them into provisional regiments.

Eugène and St. Cyr reached the Niemen on the 29th of June, and crossed at Prenn on the 30th, one of the pontoon bridges from Kovno being used for the purpose. Thence they marched for Vilna, the 4th Corps leading. The roads were frightfully bad; the rain poured in torrents without intermission, and, to add to their other miseries, the men were half-starved, the trains being even less able to keep up with the march than they had been a few days before. Eugène reached Novi Troki on the 4th, and there rested for two days. St. Cyr had halted about half-way from the Niemen. On the 30th Poniatowski and Latour-Maubourg reached Grodno. King Jerome, with the 8th Corps, was near Augustowo. Reynier, with the 7th, was at Bielsk on the Warsaw-Bielostok road; and Schwarzenberg, advancing with characteristic slowness and caution, some way east of Warsaw. Reynier’s special duty was to cover Warsaw, and Jerome could not therefore count upon him until he had been relieved by the Austrians. On the 30th Jerome received orders to march on Ochmiana—this was under the impression that Dokhturov’s corps, which had just reached that place, was the army of Bagration. Next day, however, he received fresh directions. Napoleon had ascertained the real identity of the troops at Ochmiana and now ordered his brother to direct the 5th and 8th Corps upon Minsk, and the 7th upon Nesvizh. It is obvious that these contradictory directions must have harassed and confused the inexperienced general whom his brother’s will had placed in command of three army corps; and his chief-of-staff Marchand, a good enough divisional leader, was hardly the man to make good his chief’s deficiencies. Jerome’s troops were so exhausted by the march from Warsaw, over bad roads and in pouring rain, that he felt himself obliged to give them a brief rest at Grodno. Reynier was delayed at the passage of the Narew, Platov having carefully destroyed all the boats. Minsk, Jerome’s indicated objective, is nearly 180 miles from Grodno by Novogrodek and Mir, and Nesvizh 140 from Bielostok.

Bagration left Volkovisk for Minsk late on June 28th. He expected to reach it on July 7th, but on the same day Davout was approaching Ochmiana, and could easily arrive before him. On the 30th, however, Colonel Benkendorff, one of Alexander’s aides-de-camp, arrived with fresh orders, by which Bagration was to march upon Drissa to join Barclay. Bagration, unaware that Davout was already advancing on Minsk from Vilna, and probably believing that the order would not have been sent had not Napoleon been following Barclay with the bulk of his forces, decided to join his colleague by the shortest possible route. He reached Slonim on July 1st, and on the 3rd arrived at Novogrodek, 40 miles on the Ochmiana road, where the 27th Division, marching from Minsk, joined him. Early on the 4th the head of the column was at Nikolaev-on-Niemen, and, although there were by no means too many pontoons, two bridges were thrown over the flooded river. The passage was begun as early as possible, and the 8th Corps was already across when reports arrived from Platov. He announced that he was at Vologin, some 20 miles from Nikolaev, that he was skirmishing with French cavalry, and that they belonged to Davout’s Corps, which was marching on Minsk. Platov had reached Vologin on his way to join Barclay; and there he was met by Dorokhov returning to effect a junction with Bagration at Minsk.

On the 3rd Jerome’s advance-guard had started eastward from Grodno, and on the 4th his main body was at last under way. Contradictory orders and lack of information had led Bagration into a situation of grave danger.

The Second Army, with Platov and Dorokhov, counted now about 45,000 regulars, 9000 irregulars and 192 guns. Davout had about 42,000 men, but only 30,000 actually in hand. Jerome was advancing from Grodno with nearly 55,000 more; his advance-guard was some 60 miles from Novogrodek in Bagration’s rear.

Bagration, of course, estimated Davout’s force as about 70,000 men—the original strength of the 1st Corps; and probably reckoned Jerome’s army at about equal numbers. After considering his position, he decided to make a dash for Minsk by way of the left bank of the Niemen and the Slonim-Minsk high-road, hoping that Platov and Dorokhov would be able to impose on Davout and hinder his march until the 8th, by which date Bagration hoped to reach Minsk. The 8th Corps was hastily crossed back over the Niemen; the pontoons were taken up; and the Second Army pushed for the Minsk road beyond Mir, which it reached on the 6th, having covered nearly 40 miles in two days.

As might have been expected, Platov’s mass of irregulars and Dorokhov’s small detachment could not for a moment withstand the march of Davout’s column. When the French infantry pushed steadily forward the Cossacks could only withdraw, and Dorokhov was not strong enough to defend an open town against 30,000 sabres and bayonets. Platov therefore retreated southward to join Bagration, and on the 7th Davout’s advanced guard entered Minsk unopposed, Compans, Desaix and Valence arriving next day. He captured in the town over 300,000 pounds of flour, and a vast quantity of forage, as well as much barrack and hospital equipment. On the same day Colbert’s Lancer Brigade, which was covering Davout’s left flank and rear, entered Vileika, where he found 180,000 pounds of flour, 200,000 of biscuit, 4500 bottles of spirits, and over 200 tons of forage, besides clothing and hospital stores. These captures were the first of any importance that had yet been made. The loss to the Russians was of far less importance than the gain to the French, upon whom inadequate supplies, hard marches, and trying climatic conditions had already had the worst effect. Even in the regiments of Davout’s Corps, notoriously the best disciplined and administered of the army, disorder was rife. The Dutch 33rd Léger was a prime offender. During the march to Minsk it left nearly half its numbers behind as marauders; and eventually Napoleon was obliged to issue a special order against them. Davout’s anger at its misconduct vented itself for days in his despatches and conversation; and, as was but too often the case with him, he allowed it to exceed the bounds of consideration and decency. The result was a permanent breach between himself and Desaix.

Bagration at Mir learned that Davout, greatly his superior in numbers as he believed, was across his path at Minsk, while Jerome’s advance-guard was approaching Novogrodek, and Reynier was on the march from Bielostok to Slonim. He decided, rightly under the circumstances as they presented themselves to him, to march for the Berezina at Bobruisk, which, as we have seen, was fortified, and thence make for the Düna by way of Mohilev and Orsha on the Dnieper. A more perilous march can hardly be imagined, for it would take him right across the front of the French columns moving eastward from Vilna and Minsk. Bagration, however, expected that Davout’s objective was Bobruisk, as appears by his action a few days later, and evidently hoped to get round his left flank. On July 7th the 8th Corps marched to Nesvizh on the Brest-Litovsk-Bobruisk high-road, and the 7th to Novi-Svergen on that to Minsk, in order to rally Dorokhov, while Platov, with some Cossacks and one of Raievski’s infantry regiments, took post at Mir to guard the road from Novogrodek against Jerome. On the 8th Raievski joined Borozdin, and both corps remained at Nesvizh until the 10th. A halt was imperative to rest the weary troops, who had marched over 150 miles in nine days, on wretched roads and in generally terrible weather; and it was also necessary to enable the jaded trains to get well forward on the road to Bobruisk. Bagration was fuming at the necessity for continual retreat, and on the 8th wrote an excited letter on the subject to Count Arakcheiev.

On the same day Jerome’s advance-guard, Rosniecki’s Polish Cavalry Division, reached Novogrodek. On the 9th the bulk of the 5th and 8th Corps arrived, Reynier reached Slonim from Bielostok, and Rosniecki started for Mir. On that day his leading brigade under General Turno came in contact with Platov, and a brisk action ensued, as the result of which the Poles were driven back with a loss of over 100 prisoners, besides killed and wounded.

GENERAL PRINCE BAGRATION, COMMANDER OF THE SECOND RUSSIAN ARMY IN 1812

Next day Bagration started Borozdin with the divisions of Neverovski and Prince Karl of Mecklenburg on the road to Bobruisk. He kept the 7th Corps still at Nesvizh to give the men another day’s rest, and held back Voronzov’s division to support Platov if necessary, reinforcing the latter with one regiment of infantry and three of cavalry, under Major-General Vassilchikov.

Platov had already evacuated Mir and drawn back towards Nesvizh. On the 10th he was attacked by Rosniecki, and a cavalry action on a large scale ensued. Rosniecki had with him six regiments—some 3300 lances and sabres, while Tyskiewicz’s brigade, about 1200 more, was at Mir. Platov and Vassilchikov had at their immediate disposal at least 2000 regular cavalry and 3000 Cossacks. Rosniecki’s first two brigades, including that of Turno, and Vassilchikov’s regulars crashed together in a furious hand-to-hand combat, with fairly equal fortune; but the third brigade coming up in support was enveloped by a cloud of Cossacks and broken. Thereupon the whole division was forced to give ground, hotly pressed by the Russian Hussars, Dragoons and Cossacks. A complete rout was only averted by the gallant advance of Tyskiewicz’s brigade, which covered the retreat and enabled the broken regiments to rally near Mir. The Russians thereupon drew off. They had suffered considerably, and two Cossack colonels had been killed. But the Poles had lost over 700 men, and it may be imagined that the morale of the Polish army was considerably shaken.

On the 11th Raievski and Voronzov evacuated Nesvizh and marched some 20 miles to Romanovo, while Platov fell back on Nesvizh. On the 12th Bagration made another long march to Slutsk, while Platov followed to Romanovo.

At Slutsk Bagration learned that French troops had been located at Svislocz on the Berezina, about 27 miles north of Bobruisk. The inference was that Davout was marching to anticipate him at the latter place. He sent forward Raievski at once to the threatened fortress with the 7th Corps and some cavalry and Cossacks, while the 8th waited at Slutsk for the arrival of Platov.

Romanovo lay on the small river Morvez, which was there spanned by a bridge. The advance-guard of Jerome’s army was formed on the 14th, as before, by Rosniecki’s division and Tyskiewicz’s brigade; Latour-Maubourg, with the German and Polish Cuirassiers forming the rest of his cavalry corps, was following some distance to the rear. Platov had part of his force in advance of the bridge, and as Tyskiewicz’s brigade came on it was suddenly charged, cut up and driven back. The Russians then retired across the bridge, and Rosniecki, following, plunged into a heavy cross-fire from Platov’s infantry regiment and horse artillery, and only extricated himself with severe loss. The whole division was thrust back in disorder until it reached Latour-Maubourg and his cuirassier division. The Polish losses had been very heavy; the 1st Chasseurs had been practically destroyed. Platov took 300 prisoners. He knew better than to expose his irregulars and light horsemen to the charge of the Saxon and Westphalian Cuirassiers and retired in the night to Slutsk. This released Borozdin, who followed in the track of Raievski; and in this way the Second Army, Raievski leading and Platov bringing up the rear, arrived at Bobruisk, where it was completely concentrated on the 18th. It had suffered much from fatigue and sickness during its long and painful marches, and Bagration felt it necessary to use six of the weak reserve battalions in the fortress to recruit his depleted regiments. But the Second Army was at least safe. A glance at the map will show that all the way from Nesvizh it had the Pinsk morasses on its right; and had Jerome and Davout been able to combine their attacks, the result to it might well have been fatal.

In following Bagration on his march to Bobruisk the course of events elsewhere has been somewhat anticipated. On July 14th King Jerome had thrown up his command. A little previously he had quarrelled with Vandamme, who commanded the 8th Corps under him. Vandamme was a man whose general character is entitled to no kind of respect. His conduct in Germany had been abominable. He was, however, a thorough soldier, and could not endure Jerome’s easy-going ideas of military discipline. The consequence was an open quarrel and the supersession of Vandamme. Napoleon, who knew his insubordinate disposition, did not traverse Jerome’s action. But the delay at Grodno and the failure to close with Bagration kindled his wrath, all the more so since his own immediate operations had miscarried. He vented his rage and disappointment in two violently abusive letters, and Jerome left the army.

As regards the degree of blame which attaches to Jerome, it is obvious that, but for the ill-advised order to march upon Drissa, Bagration would have been in no danger. He left Volkovisk on June 28th; Jerome did not even reach Grodno until the 30th. The vile Polish roads, rendered worse by the rain, made marching extremely difficult. A rest may well have been necessary for the over-worked and ill-fed troops; and Jerome was obliged to wait until Reynier had been relieved by the slowly advancing Austrians. Owing to the orders which he had received from head-quarters, Bagration all but marched into the midst of the forces manœuvring to intercept him. It is clear that, had Jerome moved eastward from Grodno at once, he would have pressed his antagonist hard. On the other hand, he had to take into account the harassed state of his troops, their lack of adequate supplies, the miserable roads, the absence of Reynier, the slowness of Schwarzenberg, and last, not least, the hidden Russian army of Tormazov, which might prove very formidable. Napoleon in his place would probably have taken the risk of an advance of Tormazov on Warsaw. Jerome did not, and, indeed, seeing his position as a subordinate, could not, do so. It is possible that he did not act with all the vigour which circumstances demanded; but in that case the blame must be laid at the door of Napoleon for appointing to a vitally important command a man who lacked the necessary qualifications for it. Napoleon also was directing manœuvres on the basis of hypotheses which might, and in fact did, prove unfounded. He appears rather to have ignored geographical and climatic conditions; he was certainly ill-informed as to distances. Finally he was committing the same error which had already cost him dear in Spain, in endeavouring to direct complicated strategic manœuvres from a distance; and the optimism which was becoming a mental disease with him badly affected his calculations.

The Emperor, apparently believing that Bagration was stronger than was actually the case, and that he might break northward, directed Eugène with the 4th Corps on July 7th in the track of Davout; but soon becoming aware that his intelligence was false, recalled him to Smorgoni, where he arrived on the 12th. On the 14th Eugène left to support the advance on Drissa, marching by way of Vileika, where the magazines captured by Colbert afforded supplies. Nevertheless food was invariably scanty. The wretched roads wore out the men, who fell sick or straggled in numbers. The horses fared still worse, and many died. St. Cyr, meanwhile, had marched by Novi Troki to Vilna, whence he was directed by Glubokoïe also on Drissa. The march of the unhappy Bavarians will later be alluded to. On July 11th Napoleon ordered Mortier with part of the Guard also upon Glubokoïe, and next day the first detachment of the Head-quarters Staff was directed thither. De Fezensac, who was with this detachment, notes that the Young Guard were already suffering from the effects of the tropical heat, scanty rations and fatigue—especially the newly formed “Flanqueurs-Chasseurs.” Yet Napoleon in a letter of the 11th suggests that Mortier can live on the country!

The 10th Corps, after clearing the right bank of the Niemen, had been directed north-eastward towards Mitau and Riga, which latter place it was destined to besiege. The operations of the 10th Corps were so isolated and otherwise of so languid a nature that they may for the moment be ignored. Here it is only necessary to observe that the 10th Corps was moving north-eastward on a broad front, the Prussians advancing on Mitau, the 10th Division, Poles and Germans under Grandjean, on Dünaburg. At the latter place there was a bridge-head garrisoned by some reserve battalions.

Davout, having occupied Minsk, remained there for some days. The halt was necessary in order to rally the stragglers and re-establish discipline. It was also utilised in commencing the organisation of Minsk as one of the main depôts of the army, for which its situation at the intersection of the Warsaw-Moscow and Vilna-Kiev high-roads admirably fitted it.

Davout had rightly inferred that his occupation of Minsk would oblige Bagration to retire upon Bobruisk. He might then endeavour to march up the left bank of the Berezina to the Minsk-Smolensk road at Borisov or Bobr, and thence press on to join Barclay. The Marshal accordingly sent forward his advance-guard, under Bordesoulle, to reconnoitre Borisov and occupy it if possible. He estimated Bagration’s strength, from the reports of spies and peasants, at 16 to 18 regiments of infantry and 120 guns, besides cavalry. The evaluation was much below the truth, and gives the impression that his informants had only seen and counted the regiments of one of Bagration’s two corps and the 27th Division.

Borisov was undefended. Working parties were busy almost until the last on the entrenchments of the bridge-head; but the only troops available to defend it were two skeleton battalions, which retired on the approach of the French to Mohilev. The place was occupied by Bordesoulle on the 11th, and there and in the vicinity were taken a large amount of flour and forage, about 80,000 pounds of salt, 16 spiked guns, 4000 cannon-balls and shells, some thousands of entrenching tools, and a quantity of hospital equipment and supplies.

Davout’s other cavalry brigade, under Pajol, was directed on Igumen, 35 miles south-east of Minsk, and thence also upon the Berezina. On the 13th it captured a Russian convoy of 180 waggons, which, however, being left slenderly guarded, was retaken next day by Cossacks. Pajol, meanwhile, occupied the crossings of the Berezina at Berezino and elsewhere, and awaited the arrival of Davout. He reconnoitred towards Bobruisk, and it was the presence of one of his detachments at Svislocz which alarmed Bagration and induced him to precipitate his march.

Davout decided that to advance on Bobruisk would probably be waste of time, since Bagration could almost certainly reach the place before him. He therefore rightly determined to march for Mohilev, 110 miles east of Minsk, and only some 60 from Berezino. Bagration was on the 14th still two days’ march west of Bobruisk with his advance-guard, while Borozdin and Platov were yet farther off, and could not reach the fortress until the 18th. Thence to Mohilev was four long days’ march on bad roads, while Davout had a much shorter distance to traverse. Even if he reached Bobruisk before the Russians, they could cross the Berezina under cover of the fortifications.

While Davout remained about Minsk, Grouchy, with his two cavalry divisions and Colbert’s Lancers, supported by Claparède’s Polish Legion, was making a sweep northward and westward to the great bend of the Dnieper near Orsha. On the 14th he entered Lepel, 48 miles north of Borisov, capturing large magazines of food-stuffs and forage, besides about 160 Russian prisoners. He then turned south-eastward to Orsha, which was occupied on the 18th without resistance. The magazines of provisions were even more important than those at Lepel, and a number of boats and pontoons were also taken.

The withdrawal of King Jerome left Davout in command of the whole Napoleonic right wing. Napoleon had intended that the Marshal should assume chief command only when the junction of the two forces should be complete, and later he reprimanded him for doing so before it had been effected. It is difficult to perceive what other course lay open to Davout. He made various efforts to induce the offended King to retain his command, but in vain: Jerome was thoroughly disgusted.

Davout’s advanced guard left Minsk on July 12th, and by the 15th his main body was concentrated near Igumen. Bagration’s whole force could not reach Bobruisk until the 18th, the French thus had a long start in the race to Mohilev. The untrustworthy 33rd Léger was left to garrison Minsk. The 5th Corps and Latour-Maubourg were directed by Igumen on Mohilev, and the 8th, temporarily commanded by General Tharreau, by Minsk and Borisov on Orsha.

The 7th Corps was ordered back to Slonim by Napoleon. The Emperor, deceived by Tormazov’s long inactivity, had made up his mind that he need fear nothing from him. As a fact it was lack of preparation and the necessity for completing it which was keeping Tormazov inactive; his army was very far from a sham. Napoleon, however, deciding that the 34,000 Austrians were unnecessary in that region, determined to call them up to the centre. Schwarzenberg had crossed the Bug at Mogilnitza on July 3rd, and a week later reached Pruzhani, 60 miles on the Brest-Litovsk-Minsk road. Detachments occupied Pinsk and other places, and captured large supplies and immense quantities of salt. Otherwise the Austrians had been inactive. The spirit both of officers and men was decidedly hostile to the enterprise in which they were engaged, and though Schwarzenberg himself was a Francophile he was naturally very cautious, and probably under orders to do as little as possible. Such considerations would naturally incline Napoleon to wish to have the Austrians under his own eye. Reynier, with the 7th Corps, was to take Schwarzenberg’s place and cover the frontier of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. These plans, however, could not be executed, for on July 23rd the Russian Third Army appeared on the scene with momentous results, and both Schwarzenberg and Reynier had to be diverted to check it.