History of the Expedition to Russia Part 14

Barclay alone was against fighting. His plan, erroneously attributed to England, had been formed in his mind so far back as the year 1807; but he had to combat his own army as well as ours; and though commander-in-chief and minister, he was neither Russian enough, nor victorious enough, to win the confidence of the Russians. He possessed that of Alexander alone.

Bagration and his officers hesitated to obey him. The point was to defend their native land, to devote themselves for the salvation of all: it was the affair of each, and all imagined that they had a right to examine. Thus their ill fortune distrusted the prudence of their general; whilst, with the exception of a few chiefs, our good fortune trusted implicitly to the boldness, hitherto always prosperous of ours; for in success to command is easy; no one inquires whether it is prudence or fortune that guides. Such is the situation of military chiefs; when successful, they are blindly obeyed by all; when unfortunate, they are criticized by all.

Hurried away notwithstanding, by the general impulse, Barclay had just yielded to it for a moment, collected his forces near Rudnia, and attempted to surprise the French army, dispersed as it was. But the feeble blow which his advanced guard had just struck at Inkowo had alarmed him. He trembled, paused, and imagining every moment that he saw Napoleon approaching in front of him, on his right and every where excepting on his left, which was covered as he thought by the Dnieper, he lost several days in marches and counter-marches. He was thus hesitating, when all at once Newerowskoi's cries of distress resounded in his camp. To attack was now entirely out of the question: his troops ran to arms, and hurried towards Smolensk for the purpose of defending it.

Murat and Ney were already attacking that city: the former with his cavalry, at the place where the Boristhenes enters its walls; the latter, with his infantry, where it issues from them, and on woody ground intersected by deep ravines. The marshal's left was supported by the river, and his right by Murat, whom Poniatowski, coming direct from Mohilef, arrived to reinforce.

In this place two steep hills contract the channel of the Boristhenes; on these hills Smolensk is built. That city has the appearance of two towns, separated by the river and connected by two bridges. That on the right bank, the most modern, is wholly occupied by traders; it is open, but overlooks the other, of which it is nevertheless but a dependency.

The old town, occupying the plateau and slopes of the left bank, is surrounded by a wall twenty-five feet high, eighteen thick, three thousand fathoms in length, and defended by twenty-nine ma.s.sive towers, a miserable earthen citadel of five bastions, which commands the Orcha road, and a wide ditch, which serves as a covered way. Some outworks and the suburbs intercept the view of the approaches to the Mohilef and Dnieper gates; they are defended by a ravine, which, after encompa.s.sing a great part of the town, becomes deeper and steeper as it approaches the Dnieper, on the side next to the citadel.

The deluded inhabitants were quitting the temples, where they had been praising G.o.d for the victories of their troops, when they saw them hastening up, b.l.o.o.d.y, vanquished, and flying before the victorious French army. Their disaster was unexpected, and their consternation so much the greater.

Meanwhile, the sight of Smolensk inflamed the impatient ardour of Marshal Ney: we know not whether he unseasonably called to mind the wonders of the Prussian war, when citadels fell before the sabres of our cavalry, or whether he at first designed only to reconnoitre this first Russian fortress: at any rate he approached too near; a ball struck him on the neck; incensed, he despatched a battalion against the citadel, through a shower of b.a.l.l.s, which swept away two-thirds of his men; the remainder proceeded; nothing could stop them but the Russian walls; a few only returned. Little notice was taken of the heroic attempt which they had made, because it was a fault of their general's, and useless into the bargain.

Cooled by this check, Marshal Ney retired to a sandy and wooded height bordering the river. He was surveying the city and its environs, when he imagined that he could discern troops in motion on the other side of the river: he ran to fetch the emperor, and conducted him through coppices and dingles to avoid the fire of the place.

Napoleon, on reaching the height, beheld a cloud of dust enveloping long black columns, glistening with a mult.i.tude of arms: these ma.s.ses approached so rapidly that they seemed to run. It was Barclay, Bagration, nearly 120,000 men: in short, the whole Russian army.

Transported with joy at this sight, Napoleon clapped his hands, exclaiming, "At last I have them!" There could be no doubt of it; this surprised army was hastening up to throw itself into Smolensk, to pa.s.s through it, to deploy under its walls, and at length to offer us that battle which was so ardently desired. The moment that was to decide the fate of Russia had at last arrived.

The emperor immediately went through the whole line, and allotted to each his place. Davoust, and next to him Count Lobau, were to deploy on the right of Ney: the guard in the centre, as a reserve, and farther off the army of Italy. The place of Junot and the Westphalians was indicated; but a false movement had carried them out of the way. Murat and Poniatowski formed the right of the army; those two chiefs already threatened the city: he made them draw back to the margin of a coppice, and leave vacant before them a s.p.a.cious plain, extending from this wood as far as the Dnieper. It was a field of battle which he offered to the enemy. The French army, thus posted, had defiles and precipices at its back; but Napoleon concerned himself little about retreat; he thought only of victory.

Bagration and Barclay were meanwhile returning at full speed towards Smolensk; the first to save it by a battle, the other to cover the flight of its inhabitants and the evacuation of its magazines: he was determined to leave us nothing but its ashes. The two Russian generals arrived panting on the heights on the right bank; nor did they again take breath till they saw that they were still masters of the bridges which connect the two towns.

Napoleon then caused the enemy to be hara.s.sed by a host of riflemen, for the purpose of drawing him to the left bank of the river, and ensuring a battle for the following day. It is a.s.serted that Bagration would have fallen in with his views, but that Barclay did not expose him to the temptation. He despatched him to Elnia, and took upon himself the defence of Smolensk.

Barclay had imagined that the greatest part of our army was marching upon Elnia, to get between Moscow and the Russian army. He deceived himself by the disposition, so common in war, of imputing to one's enemy designs contrary to those which he demonstrates. For the defensive, being uneasy in its nature, frequently magnifies the offensive, and fear, heating the imagination, causes it to attribute to the enemy a thousand projects of which he never dreamt. It is possible too that Barclay, having to cope with a colossal foe, felt authorized to expect from him gigantic movements.

The Russians themselves have since reproached Napoleon with not having adopted that manoeuvre; but have they considered, that to proceed thus to place himself beyond a river, a fortified town and a hostile army, to cut off the Russians from the road to their capital, would have been cutting off himself from all communication with his reinforcements, his other armies, and Europe? Those are not capable of appreciating the difficulties of such a movement who are astonished that it was not made, without preparation, in two days, across a river and a country both unknown, with such ma.s.ses, and amidst another combination the execution of which was not yet completed.

Be that as it may, in the evening of the 16th, Bagration commenced his march for Elnia. Napoleon had just had his tent pitched in the middle of his first line, almost within reach of the guns of Smolensk, and on the brink of the ravine which encircles the city. He called Murat and Davoust: the former had just observed among the Russians movements indicative of a retreat. Every day since the pa.s.sage of the Niemen, he had been accustomed to see them thus escape him; he did not therefore believe that there would be any battle the following day. Davoust was of a contrary opinion. As for the emperor, he had no hesitation in believing what he wished.

CHAP. IV.

On the 17th, by daybreak, the hope of seeing the Russian army drawn up before him awoke Napoleon; but the field which he had prepared for it remained empty: he persisted, nevertheless, in his illusion, in which Davoust partic.i.p.ated; it was to his side that he proceeded. Dalton, one of the generals of that marshal, had seen some hostile battalions quit the city and range themselves in order of battle. The emperor seized this hope, which Ney, jointly with Murat, combated in vain.

But while he was still full of hopes and expectations, Belliard, tired of this uncertainty, ordered a few horse to follow him; he drove a band of Cossacks into the Dnieper, above the town, and saw on the opposite bank the road from Smolensk to Moscow covered with artillery, and troops on the march. There was no longer any doubt that the Russians were in full retreat. The emperor was apprised that he must renounce all hopes of a battle, but that his cannon might, from the opposite bank, annoy the retrograde march of the enemy.

Belliard even proposed to send part of the army across the river, to cut off the retreat of the Russian rear-guard, which was entrusted with the defence of Smolensk; but the party of cavalry sent to discover a ford went two leagues without finding one, and drowned several horses. There was nevertheless a wide and commodious crossing about a league above the city. Napoleon himself, in his agitation, turned his horse that way. He proceeded several wersts in that direction, tired himself, and returned.

From that moment he seemed to consider Smolensk as a mere place of pa.s.sage, of which it was absolutely necessary to gain possession by main force, and without loss of time. But Murat, prudent when not heated by the presence of the enemy, and who, with his cavalry, had nothing to do in an a.s.sault, disapproved of this resolution.

To him so violent an effort appeared useless, when the Russians were retiring of their own accord; and in regard to the plan of overtaking them, he observed that, "since they would not fight, we had followed them far enough, and it was high time to stop."

The emperor replied: but the rest of their conversation was not overheard. As, however, the king afterwards declared that "he had thrown himself at the knees of his brother, and conjured him to stop, but that Napoleon saw nothing but Moscow; that honour, glory, rest, every thing for him was there; that this Moscow would be our ruin!"--it was obvious what had been the cause of their disagreement.

So much is certain, that when Murat quitted his brother-in-law, his face wore the expression of deep chagrin; his motions were abrupt; a gloomy and concentrated vehemence agitated him; and the name of Moscow several times escaped his lips.

Not far off, on the left bank of the Dnieper, a formidable battery had been placed, at the spot whence Belliard had perceived the retreat of the enemy. The Russians had opposed to us two still more formidable.

Every moment our guns were shattered, and our ammunition-waggons blown up. It was into the midst of this volcano that the king urged his horse: there he stopped, alighted, and remained motionless. Belliard warned him that he was sacrificing his life to no purpose, and without glory. The king answered only by pushing on still farther. Those around him no longer doubted, that despairing of the issue of the war, and foreseeing future disasters, he was seeking death in order to escape them.

Belliard, however, insisted, and observed to him, that his temerity would be the destruction of those about him. "Well then," replied Murat, "do you retire, and leave me here by myself." All refused to leave him; when the king angrily turning about, tore himself from this scene of carnage, like a man who is suffering violence.

Meanwhile a general a.s.sault had been ordered. Ney had to attack the citadel, and Davoust and Lobau the suburbs, which cover the walls of the city. Poniatowski, already on the banks of the Dnieper, with sixty pieces of cannon, was again to descend that river to the suburb which borders it, to destroy the enemy's bridges, and to intercept the retreat of the garrison. Napoleon gave orders, that, at the same time, the artillery of the guard should batter the great wall with its twelve-pounders, which were ineffective against so thick a ma.s.s. It disobeyed, and directed its fire into the covered way, which it cleared.

Every manoeuvre succeeded at once, excepting Ney's attack, the only one which ought to have been decisive, but which was neglected. The enemy was driven back precipitately within his walls; all who had not time to regain them perished; but, in mounting to the a.s.sault, our attacking columns left a long and wide track of blood, of wounded and dead.

It was remarked, that one battalion, which presented itself in flank to the Russian batteries, lost a whole rank of one of its platoons by a single bullet; twenty-two men were felled by the same blow.

Meanwhile the army, from an amphitheatre of heights, contemplated with silent anxiety the conduct of its brave comrades; but when it saw them darting through a shower of b.a.l.l.s and grape shot, and persisting with an ardour, a firmness, and a regularity, quite admirable; then it was that the soldiers, warmed with enthusiasm, began clapping their hands. The noise of this glorious applause was such as even to reach the attacking columns. It rewarded the devotion of those warriors; and although in Dalton's single brigade, and in the artillery of Reindre, five chiefs of battalion, 1500 men, and the general himself fell, the survivors still say, that the enthusiastic homage which they excited, was a sufficient compensation to them for all their sufferings.

On reaching the walls of the place, they screened themselves from its fire, by means of the outworks and buildings, of which they had gained possession. The fire of musketry continued; and from the report, redoubled by the echo of the walls, it seemed to become more and more brisk. The emperor grew tired of this; he would have withdrawn his troops. Thus, the same blunder which Ney had made a battalion commit the preceding day, was repeated by the whole army; the one had cost 300 or 400 men, the other 5000 or 6000; but Davoust persuaded the emperor to persevere in his attack.

Night came on. Napoleon retired to his tent, which had been placed more prudently than the day before; and the Count Lobau, who had made himself master of the ditch, but could no longer maintain his ground there, ordered sh.e.l.ls to be thrown into the city to dislodge the enemy. Thick black columns of smoke were presently seen rising from several points; these were soon lighted at intervals by flickering flashes, then by sparks, and at last, long spires of flame burst from all parts. It was like a great number of distinct fires. It was not long before they united and formed but one vast blaze, which whirling about as it rose, covered Smolensk, and entirely consumed it, with a dismal roaring.

Count Lobau was dismayed by so great a disaster, which he believed to be his own work. The emperor, seated in front of his tent, contemplated in silence this awful spectacle. It was as yet impossible to ascertain either the cause or the result, and the night was pa.s.sed under arms.

About three in the morning, one of Davoust's subalterns ventured to the foot of the wall, which he scaled without noise. Emboldened by the silence which reigned around him, he penetrated into the city; all at once several voices and the Sclavonian accent were heard, and the Frenchman, surprised and surrounded, thought that he had nothing to do but to sell his life dearly, or surrender. The first rays of the dawn, however, showed him, in those whom he mistook for enemies, some of Poniatowski's Poles. They had been the first to enter the city, which Barclay had just evacuated.

After Smolensk had been reconnoitred and its approaches cleared, the army entered the walls: it traversed the reeking and blood-stained ruins with its accustomed order, pomp, and martial music, triumphing over the deserted wreck, and having no other witness of its glory but itself. A show without spectators, an almost fruitless victory, a sanguinary glory, of which the smoke that surrounded us, and seemed to be our only conquest, was but too faithful an emblem.

CHAP. V.

When the emperor knew that Smolensk was entirely occupied, and its fires almost extinguished, and when day and the different reports had sufficiently instructed him; when, in short, he saw that there, as at the Niemen, at Wilna, at Witepsk, the phantom of victory, which allured him forward, and which he always imagined himself to be on the point of seizing, had once more eluded his grasp, he proceeded slowly towards his barren conquest. He inspected the field of battle, according to his custom, in order to appreciate the value of the attack, the merit of the resistance, and the loss on both sides.

He found it strewed with a great number of Russian dead, and very few of ours. Most of them, especially the French, had been stripped; they might be known by the whiteness of their skin, and by their forms less bony and muscular than those of the Russians. Melancholy review of the dead and dying! dismal account to make up and to render! The pain felt by the emperor might be inferred from the contraction of his features and his irritation; but in him policy was a second nature, which soon imposed silence on the first.

For the rest, this calculation of the dead the day after an engagement was as delusive as it was disagreeable; for most of ours had been previously removed, but those of the enemy left in sight; an expedient adopted with a view to prevent unpleasant impressions being made on our own troops, as well as from that natural impulse, which causes us to collect and a.s.sist our own dying, and to pay the last duties to our own dead, before we think of those belonging to the enemy.

The emperor, nevertheless, a.s.serted in his bulletin, that his loss on the preceding day was much smaller than that of the Muscovites; that the conquest of Smolensk made him master of the Russian salt works, and that his minister of finance might reckon upon twenty-four additional millions. It is neither probable nor true, that he suffered himself to be the dupe of such illusions: yet it was believed, that he was then turning against himself that faculty of imposing upon others, of which he knew how to make so important a use.

Continuing his reconnoissance, he came to one of the gates of the citadel, near the Boristhenes, facing the suburb on the right bank, which was still occupied by the Russians. There, surrounded by Marshals Ney, Davoust, Mortier, the Grand-marshal Duroc, Count Lobau, and another general, he sat down on some mats before a hut, not so much to observe the enemy, as to relieve his heart from the load which oppressed it, and to seek, in the flattery or in the ardour of his generals, encouragement against facts and against his own reflections.

He talked long, vehemently, and without interruption. "What a disgrace for Barclay, to have given up, without fighting, the key of old Russia!

and yet what a field of honour he had offered to him! how advantageous it was for him! a fortified town to support and take part in his efforts!

the same town and a river to receive and cover the wreck of his army, if defeated!

"And what would he have had to fight? an army, numerous indeed, but straitened for want of room, and having nothing but precipices for its retreat. It had given itself up, in a manner, to his blows. Barclay had wanted nothing but resolution. It was therefore, all over with Russia.

She had no army but to witness the fall of her cities, and not to defend them. For, in fact, on what more favourable ground could Barclay make a stand? what position would he determine to dispute? he, who had forsaken that Smolensk, called by him Smolensk the holy, Smolensk the strong, the key of Moscow, the Bulwark of Russia, which, as it had been given out, was to prove the grave of the French! We should presently see the effect of this loss on the Russians; we should see their Lithuanian soldiers, nay even those of Smolensk, deserting their ranks, indignant at the surrender of their capital without a struggle."