The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot

O >> Oliver C. Colt >> The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47

Chap. 12.

While all this was going on at Polotsk and on the banks of the
Drissa, the Emperor remained at Witepsk, from where he exercised
overall control of the operations of the numerous units of the
army. There are those who have reproached Napoleon with wasting
too much time, first at Wilna, where he stayed for nineteen days,
and then at Witepsk where he stayed for seventeen. They claim
that these thirty-six days could have been better employed,
particularly in a country where the summer is very short, and the
rigours of winter begin to be felt about the end of September.
This claim has some justice up to a point, but it should be
remembered, firstly that the Emperor hoped that the Russians
would request some compromise, and in the second place that it
was necessary to concentrate once more all the units which had
been scattered in the pursuit of Bagration. In addition, it was
essential to give some rest to the troops, who as well as their
regular marches had to scour the countryside each evening, far
from their bivouacs, in a search for food; because the Russians
having burned all the stores as they retreated, it was impossible
to make any daily distribution of rations. There was, however,
for a long time a happy exception to this state of affairs, in
the case of Davout's Corps. Davout was as good an administrator
as he was a fighting soldier, and well before the crossing of the
Nieman he had organised an immense convoy of little carts which
followed his army. These carts carried biscuits, salted meat and
vegetables and were drawn by oxen, a number of which could be
slaughtered daily to provide food. This arrangement contributed
greatly to keeping his men from straying from their ranks.

The Emperor left Witepsk on the 13th August, and moving further
and further away from 2nd and 6th Corps, which he left at Polotsk
under the command of Saint-Cyr, he went to Krasnoe, where a part
of the Grande Armee faced the enemy. It was hoped that there
would be a battle, but all that took place was a minor action
against the Russian rear-guard, which was defeated and promptly
withdrew. On the 15th of August, his birthday, the Emperor
reviewed his troops, who welcomed him with enthusiasm. On the
16th the army reached Smolensk, a fortified town which the
Russians call the holy of holies because they consider it to be
the key to Moscow and the palladium of their empire. Ancient
prophecies foretold disaster to Russia the day Smolensk was
taken. This superstition, carefully nurtured by the government,
dates from the time when Smolensk, situated on the Dnieper, was
the furthest Muscovite frontier, from where they issued to make
enormous conquests.

Murat and Ney, who were the first two to arrive before Smolensk,
both thought, for some unknown reason, that the Russians had
abandoned the place. The reports given to the Emperor having
convinced him that this was the case, he ordered that the
advance-guard should be sent into the town. The impatient Ney was
waiting only for this command. He advanced toward the town gate
escorted by a small body of Hussars, but suddenly a regiment of
Cossacks, hidden by a fold in the ground covered by scrub, fell
on our riders, drew them off, and surrounded Marshal Ney, who was
so hard pressed that a pistol shot fired at point blank range
tore the collar of his coat. Fortunately the Domanget brigade
hurried to the spot and freed the Marshal. The arrival of General
Razout's infantry enabled Ney to get close enough to the town to
convince himself that the Russians intended to defend it.

Seeing the ramparts armed with a great number of cannon, the
artillery general, Eble, a highly competent officer, advised the
Emperor to by-pass the place by sending the Polish Corps
commanded by Prince Poniatowski to cross the Dnieper two leagues
further upstream; but Napoleon, accepting the advice of Ney, who
assured him that Smolensk would be easily captured, gave the
order to attack. Three army Corps, those of Davout, Ney and
Poniatowski, launched an assault on the town from different
directions. A murderous fire was poured down on them from the
ramparts, and one even more deadly came from the batteries which
the Russians had established on the opposite bank of the river. A
most bloody struggle ensued; bullets, grape-shot and bombs
decimated our troops, without the artillery being able to breach
the walls. At last, as night was approaching, the enemy, who had
bravely disputed every foot of ground, were driven back into the
town itself, which they now prepared to abandon. Before they did
so, however, they set all of it on fire. The Emperor thus saw an
end to his hopes of capturing a town which was rightly supposed
to be full of supplies. It was not until dawn the next day that
the French entered the place, the streets of which were strewn
with the dead bodies of Russians and smoking debris. The taking
of Smolensk had cost us 12,000 men killed or wounded, an enormous
loss which could have been avoided by crossing the Dnieper
upstream, as had been proposed by General Eble; for, seeing
himself at risk of being cut off, General Barclay de Tolly, the
enemy commander, would have evacuated the place and retired
towards Moscow.

The Russians, after burning the bridge, halted for a short time
on the heights of the right bank and then resumed their retreat
on the road to Moscow. Marshal Ney followed them with his army
corps reinforced by Gudin's division, which was detached from
Davout's corps.

Not far from Smolensk, Marshal Ney caught up with the Russians as
they passed, with all their baggage, through a narrow defile. A
major engagement took place which could have been disasterous for
the enemy if General Junot, who commanded 8th Corps, and who had
been slow in crossing the Dnieper, two leagues above Smolensk,
and who had then halted for forty-eight hours, had hastened to
the sound of Ney's guns, which were no more than a league away.
Although informed of the situation by Ney, Junot did not budge.
He was then ordered in the name of the Emperor to come to the
assistance of Ney, but still he did not move.

Ney, facing greatly superior numbers, having engaged successively
all the troops of his Corps, ordered Gudin's division to take
some strong positions held by the Russians. This order was
executed with the greatest alacrity, but in the first wave the
brave general fell mortally wounded. However, retaining his usual
calm, and wishing to assure the success of the troops which he
had so often led to victory, he appointed General Gerard to take
over the command, although he was the most junior brigade
commander in the division.

Gerard, at the head of the division attacked the enemy, and by
ten in the evening, after losing 1800 men and killing some six
thousand, he was master of the field of battle, from which the
Russians made a hasty departure.

The next day the Emperor came to visit the troops who had fought
so bravely; he rewarded them generously and promoted Gerard to
the rank of divisional general. Gudin died a few hours later.

If Junot had taken part in the action, he could have trapped the
Russians in a narrow defile when, caught between two fires, they
would have been forced to surrender, and thus brought the war to
an end. One regretted the departure of King Jerome, whom Junot
had replaced, for although a mediocre general, he would probably
have gone to help Ney, and we expected to see Junot severely
punished; but he was one of Napoleon's earliest adherents and had
supported him in all his campaigns, from the siege of Toulon in
'93 to the present. The Emperor was fond of him and he forgave
him. This was a pity, for it was becoming necessary to make an
example.

When the Russian people heard of the fall of Smolensk, there was
a general outcry against Barclay de Tolly. He was a German; the
nation accused him of not putting enough effort into the war, and
for the defence of ancient Muscovy they demanded a Muscovite
general. Compelled to give way, Alexander handed the command of
all the Russian armies to General Koutousoff, an elderly man of
little ability, renowned only for his defeat at Austerlitz, but
having the great merit, in the circumstances, of being an out and
out Russian, which gave him a considerable influence in the eyes
of the troops and the populace at large.

The French advance-guard, driving the enemy before it, had
already passed Dorogobouje when, on the 24th of August, the
Emperor decided to leave Smolensk. The heat was stifling; we
marched on loose sand; there was insufficient food for such a
large body of men and horses, for the Russians left nothing
behind them but burning farms and villages. When the army entered
Vyazma, this pretty town was in flames, and it was the same at
Gzhatzk. The nearer we got to Moscow the fewer resources the
countryside had to offer. Several men died and many horses. A few
days later, the intolerable heat was succeeded by a cold rain
which lasted until the 4th of September; autumn was approaching.
The army was no more than six leagues from Mojaisk, the last town
we had to take before reaching Moscow, when it was noticed that
the strength of the enemy rear-guard had been considerably
increased; an indication that a major battle was at last in
prospect.

On the 5th, our advance-guard was briefly held up by a large
Russian column, well entrenched on a small hill, garnished with a
dozen guns. The 57th line regiment, which in the Italian campaign
the Emperor had named the "Terrible", worthily upheld its
reputation in capturing the redout and the enemy guns. We were
already on the terrain upon which, forty-eight hours later, would
be fought the battle which the Russians call Borodino and the
French Moscow.

On the 6th, the Emperor announced in an order of the day that
there would be a battle on the day following. The army welcomed
this announcement with pleasure in the hope that it would mean an
end to their privations, for there had been no supply of rations
for a month, and everyone had lived from hand to mouth. On both
sides the evening was employed in taking up positions of
readiness.

On the Russian side, Bagration, commanding 62,000 men was on the
left wing; in the centre was the Hetman Platov with his Cossacks
and 30,000 infantry in reserve; the right was made up of 70,000
men under the command of Barclay de Tolly, who was now the second
in command, while the elderly General Koutousoff was the overall
commander of all these troops, amounting to 162,000 men. The
Emperor Napoleon had no more than 140,000, who were disposed as
follows: Prince Eugene commanded the left wing, Marshal Davout
the right, Marshal Ney the centre, King Murat the cavalry, while
the Imperial Guard was in reserve.

The battle took place on the 7th of September; the weather was
overcast and a cold wind raised clouds of dust. The Emperor, who
was suffering from severe migraine, went down into a sort of
ravine, where he spent the greater part of the day walking on
foot. From this spot he could see only part of the battlefield,
and to see its entirety he had to climb a nearby hillock, which
he did only twice during the action. The Emperor has been blamed
for his lack of activity, but it should be borne in mind that in
the central position which he occupied with his reserves, he was
able to receive frequent reports of events occurring at all
points of the line, whereas if he had been on one wing or the
other, the aides-de-camp, hurrying with urgent information over
such broken ground, might not have been able to see him or known
where to look for him. And it must not be forgotten that the
Emperor was ill and a strong and glacial wind prevented him from
remaining on horseback.

I took no part in the battle of Moscow, so I shall refrain from
going into any detail about the various manoeuvres carried out
during this memorable action. I shall say only that after almost
unheard of efforts the French succeeded in overcoming the most
obstinate resistance of the Russians, and that the battle was one
of the most bloody fought during the century. The two armies
suffered casualties to a total of 50,000 dead or wounded. The
French had 49 generals killed or wounded and 20,000 men put out
of action. The Russian losses were a third greater. General
Bagration, the best of their officers was killed, and by a
bizarre turn of fate he happened to be the owner of the land on
which the battle was fought. Twelve thousand horses were left on
the field. The French took few prisoners, an indication of the
courage and determination of the Russian resistance.

During the action there were several interesting episodes. When
the Russian left had been twice driven back by the supreme
efforts of Murat, Davout and Ney and had yet rallied for the
third time and returned to the charge, Murat asked General
Belliard to beg the Emperor to send part of his guard to secure a
victory, failing which it would be necessary to fight another
battle to beat the Russians. Napoleon was inclined to comply
with this request, but Marshal Bessieres, commandant of the Guard
said to him "I shall permit myself to remind your majesty that
you are at this moment some seven hundred leagues from France."
Whether it was this observation or whether the Emperor thought
that the battle had not reached the stage when he should commit
his reserve, he refused the request. Two other demands of this
kind met the same fate.

There was another remarkable incident which occurred in this
battle so full of gallant deeds. The enemy front was covered by
some high ground on which were redouts and redans and in
particular, a crenelated fort armed with 80 guns. The French,
after considerable losses, had gained control of these field
works but had not been able to retain the fort, and to regain it
would be a very difficult task even for infantry. General
Montbrun, who commanded the 2nd Cavalry Corps, had noticed, with
the help of his field-glass, that the gate of the fort was not
closed and that platoons of Russian soldiers were going through
it. He also noticed that if one went round the side of the high
ground, one could avoid the ramparts, ravines and rocks and lead
a cavalry unit to the gate up a gentle slope, suited to horses.
General Montbrun proposed to get into the fort with his cavalry
from the rear, while the infantry attacked the front. This
hazardous operation having been approved by Murat and the
Emperor, Montbrun was entrusted with its execution; but while the
intrepid general was finalising his plan, he was killed by a
cannon-ball. This was a great loss for the army, but it did not
put an end to the project he had conceived, and the Emperor sent
General Coulincourt to replace him.

One now saw something unheard of in the annals of war: a huge
fort defended by numerous guns and several battalions of infantry
attacked and taken by a column of cavalry. Coulincourt pressing
ahead with a division of Cuirassiers, headed by their 5th
regiment commanded by Colonel Christophe, broke through all those
defending the approach to the fort, reached the gate, entered the
interior and fell dead with a bullet through his head. Colonel
Christophe and his troopers avenged their general by putting part
of the garrison to the sword. The fort remained in their hands,
which helped to assure a French victory.

Today, when the thirst for promotion has become insatiable, one
would be astonished if, after such a feat, a colonel was not
promoted; but during the Empire ambition was more modest.
Christophe did not become a general until some years later, and
never showed any discontent with this delay.

The Poles, usually so courageous, particularly those from the
Grand Duchy of Warsaw commanded by Prince Poniatovski, fought so
badly that the Emperor sent his major general to upbraid them. In
this battle of Moscow, General Rapp was wounded for the
twenty-first time.

Although the Russians had been defeated and forced to leave the
field of battle, their generalissimo, Koutousoff, had the
impudence to write to the Emperor Alexander, claiming that he had
just won a great victory over the French. This falsehood, which
arrived in St. Petersburg on Alexander's birthday, gave rise to
much rejoicing. A Te Deum was sung and Koutousoff was promoted to
field-marshal. However it was not long before the truth was known
and the joy turned to grief; but Koutousoff was now a
field-marshal, which was what he wanted. Anyone but the timid
Alexander would have severely punished the new field-marshal for
this outrageous lie; but Koutousoff was needed, and so he
remained head of the army.

Chap. 13.

The Russians, retreating towards Moscow, were contacted on the
morning of the eighth, when there was a sharp cavalry engagement
in which General Belliard was wounded. Napoleon spent three days
at Mojaisk, partly to draw up the orders necessary in the
circumstances and partly to reply to the back-log of despatches.
One of these, which had arrived on the eve of the battle, had
affected him greatly and had contributed to making him ill, for
it announced that the so-called army of Portugal, commanded by
Marshal Marmont, had suffered a severe defeat at Arpiles, near
Salamanca, in Spain.

Marmont was one of Napoleon's mistakes. He had been one of
Napoleon's companions at the college of Brienne and later in the
artillery, and Napoleon took an interest in him. Misled by some
success achieved by Marmont at school, the Emperor had a belief
in the Marshal's military talents which his performance in the
field never justified. In 1811, Marmont had replaced Massena as
commander of the army of Portugal, proclaiming that he would
defeat Wellington, but the contrary proved to be the case.
Marmont, defeated, wounded, with his army in disarray and obliged
to abandon several provinces, would have suffered even worse
reverses if General Clausel had not come to his aid.

When he learned of this disaster, the Emperor must have reflected
deeply on the present operation, for while he was about to enter
Moscow at the head of his largest army, a thousand leagues away
another army had just been defeated. By invading Russia was he
about to lose Spain? Major Fabvier, who brought this despatch,
volunteered to join in the battle for Moscow and was wounded in
the assault on the great redout. It was a long way to come to be
hit by a bullet.

On the 12th of September Napoleon left Mojaisk, and on the 15th
he entered Moscow. This enormous city was deserted. General
Rostopschine, its governor, had forced all the inhabitants to
leave. This Rostopschine, whom some have described as a hero,
was a barbarian, who would shrink from nothing to achieve his
aims. He had allowed the populace to strangle a number of foreign
merchants, mainly the French, who were living in Moscow, on the
sole grounds that they were suspected of hoping for the arrival
of Napoleon's troops. Some days before the battle of Moscow, the
Cossacks having captured about a hundred sick Frenchmen,
Koutousoff sent them by a roundabout road to the governor of
Moscow, who, regardless of their condition, left them for
forty-eight hours without food and then paraded them triumphantly
through the streets, where a number of these unfortunates
collapsed and died of starvation. As this was happening,
policemen read to the populace a proclamation by Rostopschine in
which, to encourage them to take up arms, he declared that all
the French were in a similar feeble state and would be easily
overcome. When this disgusting performance was over, the majority
of the soldiers still alive were killed by the mob, without
Rostopschine doing anything to protect them.

The defeated Russian troops had only passed through Moscow, and
had gone to re-group some thirty leagues from there, around
Kalouga. Murat followed them with all his cavalry and several
infantry corps. The Imperial Guard stayed in the town and
Napoleon took up residence in the Kremlin, the ancient fortified
palace of the Czars. Everything seemed peaceful, when, during
the night 15th-16th September, some French and German merchants
who had escaped the governor's attentions came to warn Napoleon's
staff that the city was to be set on fire. This information was
confirmed by a Russian policeman, who refused to carry out the
orders of his superiors: he stated that before leaving Moscow,
Rostopschine had thrown open all the prisons and released the
prisoners and convicts, to whom he had given torches said to have
been supplied by the British, and that these persons were lying
hidden in the abandoned houses waiting for the signal. When the
Emperor heard of this he instituted the strictest precautionary
measures. Patrols went about the streets and killed a number of
those caught setting fires alight, but it was too late; fire
broke out in various parts of the city and spread rapidly owing
to the fact that Rostopschine had taken away all the
fire-fighting equipment. It was not long before the whole of
Moscow was ablaze. The Emperor left the Kremlin and went to the
chateau of Peterskoe. He did not return until three days later,
when the fire was beginning to subside for lack of fuel. I shall
not go into any details about the fire itself, as there are
several eye-witness accounts, but later I shall examine the
consequences of this catastrophic conflagration.

Napoleon, who did not understand the position in which Alexander
found himself, hoped always for some accommodation and
eventually, tired of waiting, he decided to write to him
personally. In the meantime the Russian army was being
reorganised in the area of Kalouga, from where agents were sent
to direct stray soldiers back to their units. It was estimated
that there were about 15,000 of them concealed in the suburbs and
able to wander about our bivouacs without being challenged. They
sat round the fires with our men and ate with them, yet no one
thought of making them prisoners. This was a great mistake, for
they gradually returned to the Russian army, while our strength
diminished daily owing to sickness and the increasing cold. We
lost an enormous number of horses, which was thought due to the
extraordinary efforts demanded by Murat from the cavalry, of
which he was the commander. Murat, recalling the brilliant
successes obtained against the Prussians in 1806 and 1807 by
pursuing them closely, thought that the cavalry should be equal
to any demands and should march twelve to fifteen leagues a day
without worrying about the fatigue of the horses, the essential
being to reach the enemy with at least some of the columns.
However the climate, the shortage of rations and fodder, the long
duration of the campaign and above all the tenacious resistance
of the Russians had greatly changed the situation, so that by the
time we reached Moscow, half our cavalrymen had no horses, and
Murat managed to finish off the rest at Kalouga. Prince Murat was
proud of his tall stature and his bravery; and being always
decked out in strange but brilliant uniforms, he had attracted
the notice of the enemy, with whom he was pleased to parley, even
exchanging gifts with the Cossack officers. Koutousoff took
advantage of these meetings to encourage in the French the false
hopes of a peace, hopes which Murat passed on to the Emperor. One
day, however, this enemy who claimed to be so weakened, arose,
slipped into our cantonments and captured some supplies, a
squadron of dragoons and a battalion of troops. After this
Napoleon forbade, under pain of death, any communication with the
Russians which he had not authorised.

The Emperor never entirely lost hope of concluding a peace, on
the 4th of October he sent General Lauriston, his aide-de-camp,
to General Koutousoff's headquarters. The cunning Russian showed
General Lauriston a letter which he had addressed to the Emperor
Alexander, urging him to agree to the French proposals, seeing
that, as he alleged, the Russian army was in no state to continue
the war. The officer carrying this despatch had hardly left for
St. Petersburg, armed with a pass from Lauriston which would
preserve him from attack by any of our men who were in the area
between the two armies, when Koutousoff sent off a second
aide-de-camp to his Emperor. This officer, having no French
laissez-passer, was stopped by one of our patrols, taken prisoner
and his despatches sent to Napoleon. The contents were the exact
opposite to what had been shown to Lauriston. After imploring his
sovereign not to treat with the French, he informed him that
Admiral Tchitchakoff's army, freed from its duties on the
frontier by the peace with Turkey, was moving towards Minsk in
order to cut the French line of retreat. He also told Alexander
of the discussions he had conducted freely with Murat, with the
aim of encouraging the false sense of security entertained by the
French in remaining in Moscow so late in the year.

When he saw this letter, Napoleon, realising that he had been
tricked, fell into a furious rage, and is said to have
contemplated marching on St. Petersburg; but beyond the
diminished strength of the army and the rigours of the winter,
which militated against such an undertaking, there were pressing
reasons for the Emperor to get closer to Germany, in order to
watch over that country and to see what was going on in France,
where there had been a conspiracy whose leaders had been, for one
day, in control of the capital. A fanatic, General Malet, had
tossed a spark into Paris which could have started a fire, which,
had he not encountered a man as far-seeing and energetic as
Adjutant-major Laborde, might have put an end to the imperial
government.