The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot

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As soon as I heard of the serious position in which the Marshal
found himself, I left with my regiment at the trot to bring him
help. It was a good thing that we arrived when we did, for
although the Marshal, joined by his aides-de-camp and some dozen
French soldiers, was barricaded in a stone house, he was on the
point of being captured by the dragoons when we arrived. When
they saw us, the enemy mounted their horses and fled. My troopers
went after them and managed to kill about twenty of them and take
some prisoners; I had two men wounded. The marshal, glad to have
escaped from the Russians, expressed his thanks, and I escorted
him back to the French cantonments where he was out of danger.

At this period in time, it seemed that none of the marshals was
prepared to recognise the right of seniority amongst themselves,
for not one of them was willing to serve under the orders of his
comrade, no matter how serious the situation. So as soon as
Oudinot took command of the 2nd Corps, Victor, rather than
remaining under his authority to join in combating Wittgenstein,
took himself off with his 25,000 men to Kokhanov. Marshal
Oudinot, left on his own, marched his men for several days round
various parts of the province before setting up his headquarters
at Tschereia, with his advance-guard at Loucoulm. It was here,
during a minor action involving Castex's brigade that I received
my promotion to colonel. If you recall that I had suffered, in
the rank of major, a wound at Znaim in Moravia, two at Miranda de
Corvo in Portugal, one at Jakoubowo, that I had fought in four
campaigns in the same rank and that finally I had been in command
of a regiment since the French entry into Russia, you may think
that I had earned my new epaulets. I was grateful to the Emperor
when I learned that he intended to keep me with the 23rd
Chasseurs, for whom I had great affection, and where I was liked
and valued. In fact this decision was welcomed by all ranks, and
the troops whom I had so often led into battle came, both
officers and men, to tell me of their satisfaction at my
remaining their commander. The good General Castex, who had
always treated me as a brother, welcomed me in front of the
regiment, and even the Colonel of the 24th, with whom I had few
dealings, came to congratulate me with all his officers, whose
respect I had acquired.

However, the situation of the French army grew worse by the day.
General Schwartzenberg, the Austrian commander-in-chief whom
Napoleon had placed on the right wing of his army, had, by an act
of low treachery, allowed the troops belonging to Admiral
Tchitchakoff to pass, and they had seized control of Minsk, from
where they threatened our rear. The Emperor must now have much
regretted that he had given the command of Lithuania to the
Dutchman Hogendorf, his aide-de-camp, who, having never been in
action, did not know what to do to save Minsk, where he could
have easily have combined the 30,000 men of the Durette, Loison,
and Dombrowski divisions which had been placed at his disposal.
The fall of Minsk, although a serious matter, was one to which
the Emperor attached little importance, for he relied on crossing
the Beresina at Borisoff, where there was a bridge protected by a
fort, in good condition and manned by a Polish regiment. The
Emperor was so confident about this that, in order to speed the
march of his army he burned all his bridging equipment at Orscha.
This was a disastrous mistake, for these pontoons would have
assured us a quick crossing of the Beresina which, in the event,
we had to effect at the cost of so much blood.

Despite his confidence in relation to the crossing, Napoleon,
when he heard of the Russian occupation of Minsk, ordered Oudinot
to proceed by forced marches to Borisoff. But we arrived there
too late, because General Bronikovski, who was in command of the
fort, seeing himself surrounded by a numerous enemy, thought it
would be a praiseworthy act to save his garrison. So instead of
putting up a determined resistance, which would have given
Oudinot the time to come to his help, he abandoned the fort,
crossed the bridge to the left bank with all his men, and set out
for Orscha to join Oudinot's corps, which he met on the road. The
Marshal gave him a very rough reception and ordered him to return
with us to Borisoff.

Not only were the town, the bridge across the Beresina, and the
fort which dominates it in the hands of Tchitchakoff, but the
Admiral, carried away by this success and anxious to challenge
the French, had marched from the town with the bulk of his army,
the vanguard of which, consisting of a strong cavalry division,
was led by General Lambert, the most competent of his
lieutenants.

As the country was open, Oudinot put ahead of his infantry the
division of Cuirassiers, and ahead of them Castex's brigade of
light cavalry.

It was about three leagues from Borisoff that the Russian
advance-guard, going in the opposite direction to us, came up
against our Cuirassiers, who having done little fighting during
the campaign, had asked to be in the front line. At the sight of
this fine regiment, still strong in numbers and well-mounted,
with their cuirasses gleaming in the sunlight, the Russian
cavalry pulled up short; then, gathering their courage, they
moved forward again, at which point our Cuirassiers, in a furious
charge, overran them, killing or capturing about a thousand.
Tchitchakoff, who had been assured that Napoleon's army was no
more than a disorganised mass of men without arms, had not
expected this display of vitality, and he beat a hurried retreat
towards Berisoff.

It is well known that after putting in a charge, the big horses
of the heavy cavalry, and above all those of the Cuirassiers,
cannot continue to gallop for very long. So it was the 23rd and
the 24th Chasseurs who took up the pursuit of the enemy, while
the Cuirassiers followed in the second line, at a slower pace.

Tchitchakoff had not only made a mistake in attacking Oudinot but
he had also brought with him all the baggage of his army, which
filled more than fifteen hundred vehicles, so that the rapid
retreat of the Russians caused such confusion that the two
regiments of Castex's brigade often found themselves hindered by
the carts which had been abandoned by the enemy. This confusion
became even worse when we entered the town, where the streets
were cluttered with baggage and draught horses, through which
obstructions Russian soldiers, who had thrown away their arms,
wove their way as they sought to rejoin their units. We managed
to reach the centre of the town, but only after losing precious
time, which allowed the Russians to cross the river.

Our orders were to reach the bridge and try to cross it at the
same time as the fleeing Russians; but to do this one had to know
where the bridge was, and none of us knew the town. My troopers
brought me a Jew whom I questioned in German, but he either did
not know, or pretended not to know the language, and I could get
no information from him. I would have given a great deal to have
had with me my Polish servant, Lorentz, to act as interpreter,
but the coward had remained behind as soon as there was any
fighting. So we had to comb the town until we eventually came to
the Beresina. The river was not yet sufficiently frozen to permit
one to cross on the ice, so it was necessary to use the bridge,
but to take the bridge would require infantry, and our infantry
was still three leagues from Borisoff. To take their place,
Marshal Oudinot, who had arrived on the scene, ordered General
Castex to dismount three quarters of the troopers of the two
regiments, who armed with muskets could attack the bridge on
foot. We left the horses in the nearby streets guarded by one or
two men, and headed for the river behind General Castex, who on
this perilous enterprise wished to be at the head of his brigade.

The defeat suffered by the advance-guard had produced
consternation in Tchitchakoff's army, the utmost disorder ruled
on the side of the river which it occupied, where we could see a
mass of fugitives disappearing into the distance; so although it
had at first seemed to me that it would be extremely difficult
for dismounted troopers, without bayonets, to force a passage
over the bridge, and keep possession of it, I began to hope for a
successful outcome, for the opposition was no more than a few
musket shots. I therefore ordered that as soon as the first
platoon reached the right bank it should occupy houses adjoining
the bridge so that being in control of both ends we could defend
it until the arrival of our infantry. Suddenly, however, the
cannons of the fort thundered into action, covering the bridge
with a hail of grape-shot, which forced our little group to fall
back. A body of Russian sappers used this breathing space to set
fire to the bridge, but as their presence prevented the gunners
from firing, we took the opportunity to attack them, killing or
throwing into the river the greater part of them. Our Chasseurs
had already extinguished the fire when they were charged by a
battalion of Russian Grenadiers, and driven at bayonet point off
the bridge, which was soon set alight in many places and became a
huge bonfire whose intense heat made both sides move away.

The French had now to give up hope of crossing the Beresina at
this point, and their line of retreat was cut!...This was for us
a fatal calamity, and contributed largely to changing the face of
Europe, by shaking the Emperor on his throne.

Marshal Oudinot, once he saw that it was impossible to force a
passage over the river at Borisoff, considered that it would be
dangerous to have the town choked by the rest of his troops, so
he ordered them to halt and set up camp while they were still
some distance away. Castex's brigade stayed on its own in
Borisoff and was forbidden to communicate with the other units,
from which it was hoped to conceal for as long as possible the
disastrous news of the burning of the bridge, which they did not
hear about until forty-eight hours later.

Under the conventions of war, the enemy's baggage belongs to the
captors. General Castex therefore authorised the troopers of my
regiment and those of the 24th to help themselves to the booty
contained in the 1500 wagons and carts abandoned by the Russians
in their flight to the other side of the bridge. The quantity of
goods was immense, but as it was a hundred times more than the
brigade could carry, I called together all the men of my regiment
and told them that as we were to make a long retreat, during
which I would probably be unable to make the distributions of
rations which I had done during all the campaign, I would advise
them to provide themselves mainly with foodstuff, and think also
about protection from the cold, I reminded them that an
overloaded horse will not last for long, and that they should not
weigh theirs down with articles of no use in war. "What is more,"
I told them, "I shall hold an inspection, and anything which is
not food, clothing, or footwear will be rejected without
exception." General Castex, to avoid all argument, had planted
markers, which divided the mass of vehicles into two parts, so
that each regiment had its own area.

Oudinot's forces surrounded the town on three sides, the fourth
was bounded by the Beresina, and there were a number of
observation posts, so that our soldiers could examine the
contents of the Russian carts in safety. It appeared that the
officers of Tchitchakoff's army treated themselves well, for
there was a profusion of hams, pastries, sausages, dried fish,
smoked meat and wines of all sorts, plus an immense quantity of
ships' biscuits, rice, cheese, etc. Our men also took furs and
strong footwear, which saved the lives of many of them. The
Russian drivers had fled without taking their horses, almost all
of which were of good quality. We took the best to replace those
of which the troopers complained, and officers used some as
pack-horses to carry the foodstuff which they had acquired.

The brigade spent another day in Borisoff, and as in spite of the
precautions which had been taken, the news of the destruction of
the bridge had spread throughout 2nd Corps, Marshal Oudinot, in
order to allow all his troops to take advantage of the goods
contained in the enemy vehicles, arranged that successive
detachments from all the regiments might enter the town, to take
their share of the plunder. Notwithstanding the quantity of
goods of all kinds taken by Oudinot's men, there remained enough
for the numerous stragglers returning from Moscow on the
following day.

The supreme command ,and indeed all officers who were able to
appreciate the situation, were extremely worried. We had before
us the Beresina, on the opposite bank of which were gathered
Tchitchakoff's forces, our flanks were threatened by
Wittgenstein, Koutousoff was on our tail, and except for the
debris of the Guard and Oudinot's and Victors' corps, reduced now
to a few thousand combatants, the rest of the Grande Armee,
recently so splendid, was composed of sick men and soldiers
without weapons, whom starvation had deprived of their former
energy. Everything conspired against us; for although, owing to a
drop in the temperature, Ney had been able, a few days
previously, to escape across the frozen Nieman, we found the
Beresina unfrozen, despite the bitter cold, and we had no
pontoons with which to make a bridge.

On the 25th of November, the Emperor entered Borisoff, where
Marshal Oudinot awaited him with the 6000 men he had left.
Napoleon, and the officers of his staff were astonished at the
good order and discipline which obtained in 2nd Corps, whose
bearing contrasted so markedly with that of the wretched groups
of men whom they were leading back from Moscow. Our troops were
certainly not so smart as they would have been in barracks, but
every man had his weapons and was quite prepared to use them. The
Emperor was so impressed by their turn-out that he summoned all
the colonels and told them to inform their regiments of his
satisfaction with the way they had conducted themselves in the
many savage actions which had been fought in the province of
Polotsk.

Chap. 18.

You will recall that when the Bavarian General Comte de Wrede
made his unauthorised departure from 2nd Corps, he took with him
Corbineau's cavalry brigade, after assuring General Corbineau
that he had orders to do so, which was not true. Well, this piece
of trickery resulted in the saving of the Emperor and the remains
of his Grande Armee.

General Corbineau, dragged unwillingly away from 2nd Corps, of
which he was a part, had followed General Wrede as far as
Gloubokoye, but there he had declared that he would go no further
unless the Bavarian general showed him the order, which he
claimed to have, instructing him to keep Corbineau with him.
General Wrede was unable to do this, so Corbineau left him and
headed for Dokshitsy and the headwater of the Beresina, then,
going down the right bank of the river, he intended to reach
Borisoff, cross the bridge and take the road to Orscha to look
for Oudinot's Corps, which he thought was in the region of Bobr.

The Emperor, who had available the services of several thousand
Poles belonging to the Duchy of Warsaw, has been blamed for not
attaching, from the beginning of the campaign, some of them to
every general or even every colonel to act as interpreters, for
this would have avoided many mistakes. This was proved during the
dangerous journey of several days which the Corbineau brigade had
to undertake through unknown country, the language of whose
inhabitants none of the Frenchmen could understand, for it so
happened that among the three regiments which the General
commanded was the 8th Polish Lancers, whose officers extracted
from the local people all the necessary information. This was a
tremendous help to Corbineau.

When he was about half a day's journey from Borisoff, some
peasants told the Polish Lancers that Tchitchakoff's troops were
occupying the town, information which dashed his hopes of
crossing the Beresina; however these same peasants having
persuaded him to turn round, led him to the village of Studianka,
not far from Weselovo, four leagues above Borisoff, where there
is a ford. The three regiments crossed the ford without loss and
the General, going across country and avoiding some of
Wittgenstein's troops who were moving towards Borisoff,
eventually rejoined Oudinot on the 23rd of November at a place
called Natscha.

This daring march undertaken by Corbineau was much to his credit,
but more than that, it was a stroke of remarkable good fortune
for the army, for the Emperor, realising the impossibility of
re-building the bridge at Borisoff in the near future, resolved,
after discussing the matter with Corbineau, to cross the Beresina
at Studianka. Tchitchakoff, who had been told of the crossing at
this point effected by Corbineau's brigade, had placed a strong
division and many guns opposite Studianka, so Napoleon, to
deceive him, employed a stratagem, which although very old, is
almost always successful. He pretended that he was not interested
in Studianka and that he intended to use one of two other fords
which were below Borisoff, the most practicable of which was at
the village of Oukolada. To this end he sent ostentatiously to
the spot one of the still armed battalions, followed by a horde
of stragglers, which the enemy might take for a full-strength
division of infantry. At the tail of this column were numerous
wagons, a few guns and the division of Cuirassiers. Having
arrived at Oukolada these troops placed the guns in position, and
did all they could to look as if they were about to build a
bridge.

Told of these preparations, Tchitchakoff had no doubt that it was
Napoleon's intention to cross the river at this point so as to
reach the road to Minsk, which ran nearby. He therefore hurriedly
sent down the right bank, to face Oukoloda, the entire garrison
of Borisoff. Not only that, for some extraordinary reason, the
Russian general, who had sufficient troops to protect both the
upper and lower parts of the river, removed all of those which he
had placed previously in a position to oppose a crossing at
Studianka and sent them too down to Oukoloda. He had now
abandoned the place where the Emperor intended to build a bridge,
and had concentrated his force, uselessly, six leagues
downstream.

In addition to the error of massing all his army below Borisoff,
Tchitchakoff made a mistake which a sergeant would not have made,
and one for which his government never forgave him. The town of
Zembin, which is opposite to the ford at Studianka, is built on a
vast marsh, through which runs the road to Wilna. The road goes
over twenty-two wooden bridges which the Russian general could
have easily reduced to cinders before leaving the district, as
they were surrounded by many stacks of dry reeds. If Tchitchakoff
had done this, the French army would have been left without hope.
It would have served it nothing to have crossed the river, for it
would have been halted by the deep marshland surrounding Zembin;
but the Russian general left the bridges intact, and foolishly
went down the Beresina with all his men, leaving only about fifty
Cossacks to keep an eye on the ford.

While the Russians, taken in by Napoleon's subterfuge, were
deserting the real point of attack, Napoleon gave his orders.
Oudinot and his army Corps were to go by night to Studianka, and
there arrange for the building of two bridges, before crossing to
the right bank and occupying the area between the town of Zembin
and the river. Marshal Victor, leaving Natscha, was to form the
rear-guard. He was to drive before him all the stragglers, and
was to try to hold Borisoff for a few hours before going to
Studianka and crossing the bridges. Those were the Emperor's
orders, the execution of which in detail was frustrated by
events.

On the evening of the 25th, Corbineau's brigade, whose commander
knew the area well, proceeded up the left bank of the Beresina
towards Studianka, followed by Castex's brigade and several
battalions of light infantry; after which came the bulk of 2nd
Corps.

We were sorry to leave Borisoff where we had spent two happy
days.

We had perhaps a presentiment of the bad times which were to
come.

At daybreak on the 26th of November we arrived at Studianka,
where there were no signs of any preparation for defence on the
opposite bank, so that, had the Emperor not burned the bridging
equipment a few days previously at Orscha, the army could have
crossed immediately. The river, which some have described as
huge, is more or less as wide as the Rue Royale in Paris where it
passes the Ministry of Marine. As for its depth, it is enough to
say that the three regiments of Corbineau's brigade had forded it
seventy-two hours previously without accident, and did so again
on the day of which I write. Their horses never lost their
footing and had to swim only at two or three places. At this time
the crossing presented only a few minor inconveniences to the
cavalry, the artillery and the carts, one of which was that the
riders and carters were wet up to their knees, which was not
insupportable because, regrettably the cold was not sufficiently
severe to freeze the river, which would have been better for us.
The second inconvenience which arose from the lack of frost was
that the marshy ground which bordered the opposite bank of the
river was so muddy that the saddle-horses had difficulty in
crossing it and the carts could sink in to their axles.

Esprit de corps is certainly very praiseworthy, but it should be
moderated or forgotten in difficult circumstances. This did not
happen at the Beresina, where the commanders of the artillery and
the engineers both demanded sole responsibility for building the
bridges, and as neither would give way, nothing was being done.
When the Emperor arrived on the 26th, he ended this quarrel by
ordering that two bridges should be built, one by the artillery
and one by the engineers. Immediately beams and battens were
seized from the hovels of the village and the sappers and the
gunners got to work. Those gallant men showed a devotion to duty
which has not been sufficiently recognised. They went naked into
the freezing water and worked for six or seven hours at a
stretch, although there was not a drop of "eau de vie" to offer
them, and they would be sleeping in a field covered by snow.
Almost all of them died later, when the severe frosts came.

While the bridges were being built and while my regiment and all
the troops of 2nd Corps were waiting on the left bank for the
order to cross the river, the Emperor, walking rapidly, went from
regiment to regiment, speaking to the men and officers. He was
accompanied by Murat. This brave and dashing officer who had so
distinguished himself as the victorious French were advancing on
Moscow, the proud Murat had been, so to speak, eclipsed since we
had left that city and during the retreat he had taken part in
none of the fighting. One saw him following the Emperor in
silence, as if he had nothing to do with what was going on in the
army. He seemed to shed some of his torpor at the Beresina at the
sight of the only troops who were still in good order, and who
constituted the last hope of safety.

As Murat was very fond of the cavalry, and as of the many
squadrons which had crossed the Nieman there remained none except
those in Oudinot's corps, he urged the Emperor's footsteps in
their direction.

Napoleon was delighted with the state of these units and of my
regiment in particular, for it was now stronger than several of
the brigades. I had more than 500 men on horseback, whereas the
other colonels in the corps had scarcely 200, so I received some
flattering comments from the Emperor, a great share of which was
due to my officers and men.

It was at this time that I had the good fortune to be joined by
Jean Dupont, my brother's servant, a man of exemplary loyalty,
devotion and courage. Left on his own after the capture of my
brother early in the campaign, he had followed the 16th Chasseurs
to Moscow and taken part in the retreat, while caring for my
brother Adolphe's three horses, of which he had refused to sell a
single one in spite of many offers. He reached me after five
months of hunger and hardship, still carrying all my brother's
effects, though he told me, with tears in his eyes, that having
worn out his shoes and been reduced to walking barefoot in the
snow, he had dared to take a pair of boots belonging to his
master. I kept this admirable man in my service, and he was a
great help to me when, some time later, I was wounded once more,
in the midst of the most horrible days of the great retreat.

To return to the crossing of the Beresina. Not only did our
horses cross the river without difficulty, but our "cantiniers"
or sutlers, drove their carts across. This made me think that it
might be possible, if one unharnessed some of the many carts
which followed the army, to fix them in the river in a line, one
after the other, to make a sort of causeway for the infantrymen,
something which would greatly ease the flow of the mass of
stragglers who the next day would be crowding round the entries
to the bridges. This seemed to me to be such a good idea, that
although I was wet to the waist, I recrossed the ford to offer it
to the generals of the Imperial staff.