History of the Expedition to Russia Part 29

But the armistice proposed by Kutusoff was unsatisfactory to him, and he ordered Murat to break it instantly; but notwithstanding, it continued to be observed, the cause of which is unknown.

This armistice was a singular one. If either party wished to break it, three hours notice was to be sufficient. It was confined to the fronts of the two camps, but did not extend to their flanks. Such at least was the interpretation put upon it by the Russians. We could not bring up a convoy, or send out a foraging party, without fighting; so that the war continued everywhere, excepting where it could be favourable to us.

In the first of the succeeding days, Murat took it into his head to show himself at the enemy's advanced posts. There, he was gratified by the notice which his fine person, his reputation for bravery, and his rank procured him. The Russian officers took good care not to displease him; they were profuse of all the marks of respect calculated to strengthen his illusion. He could give his orders to their vedettes just as he did to the French. If he took a fancy to any part of the ground which they occupied, they cheerfully gave it up to him.

Some Cossack chiefs even went so far as to affect enthusiasm, and to tell him that they had ceased to acknowledge any other as Emperor but him who reigned at Moscow. Murat believed for a moment that they would no longer fight against him. He went even farther. Napoleon was heard to exclaim, while reading his letters, "Murat, King of the Cossacks! What folly!" The most extravagant ideas were conceived by men on whom fortune had lavished all sorts of favours.

As for the Emperor, who could scarcely be deceived, he had but a few moments of a fact.i.tious joy. He soon complained "that an annoying warfare of partizans hovered around him; that notwithstanding all these pacific demonstrations, he was sensible that bodies of Cossacks were prowling on his flanks and in his rear. Had not one hundred and fifty dragoons of his old guard been surprised and routed, by a number of these barbarians? And this two days after the armistice, on the road to Mojaisk, on his line of operation, that by which the army communicated with its magazines, its reinforcements, its depots, and himself with Europe!"

In fact two convoys had just fallen into the enemy's hands on that road: one through the negligence of its commander, who put an end to his life in despair; and the other through the cowardice of an officer, who was about to be punished when the retreat commenced. To the destruction of the army he owed his escape.

Our soldiers, and especially our cavalry, were obliged every morning to go to a great distance in quest of provisions for the evening and the next day; and as the environs of Moscow and Vinkowo became gradually more and more drained, they were daily necessitated to extend their excursions. Both men and horses returned worn out with fatigue, that is to say such of them as returned at all; for we had to fight for every bushel of rye, and for every truss of forage. It was a series of incessant surprises, skirmishes, and losses. The peasantry took a part in it. They punished with death such of their number as the prospect of gain had allured to our camp with provisions. Others set fire to their own villages, to drive our foragers out of them, and to give them up to the Cossacks whom they had previously summoned, and who kept us there in a state of siege.

It was the peasantry also who took Verea, a town in the neighbourhood of Moscow. One of their priests is said to have planned and executed this _coup-de-main_. He armed the inhabitants, obtained some troops from Kutusoff; then on the 10th of October, before daybreak, he caused the signal of a false attack to be given in one quarter, while in another he himself rushed upon our palisades, destroyed them, penetrated into the town, and put the whole garrison to the sword.

Thus the war was every where; in our front, on our flanks and in our rear: the army was weakening, and the enemy becoming daily more enterprising. This conquest was destined to fare like many others, which are won in the ma.s.s, and lost in detail.

Murat himself at length grew uneasy. In these daily skirmishes he saw half of the remnant of his cavalry melted away. At the advanced posts, or on meeting with our officers, those of the Russians, either from weariness, vanity, or military frankness carried to indiscretion, exaggerated the disasters which threatened us. They showed us those "wild-looking horses, scarcely at all broken in, whose long manes swept the dust of the plain. Did not this tell us that a numerous cavalry was joining them from all quarters, while ours was gradually perishing? Did not the continual discharges of fire-arms within their line apprise us that a mult.i.tude of recruits were there training under favour of the armistice?"

And in fact, notwithstanding the long journies which they had to make, all these recruits joined the army. There was no occasion to defer calling them together as in other years, till deep snows, obstructing all the roads excepting the high road, rendered their desertion impossible. Not one failed to obey the national appeal; all Russia rose: mothers, it was said, wept for joy on learning that their sons had been selected for soldiers: they hastened to acquaint them with this glorious intelligence, and even accompanied them to see them marked with the sign of the Crusaders, to hear them cry, _'Tis the will of G.o.d!_

The Russian officers added, "that they were particularly astonished at our security on the approach of their mighty winter, which was their natural and most formidable ally, and which they expected every moment: they pitied us and urged us to fly. In a fortnight, your nails will drop off, and your arms will fall from your benumbed and half-dead fingers."

The language of some of the Cossack chiefs was also remarkable. They asked our officers, "if they had not, in their own country, corn enough, air enough, graves enough--in short, room enough to live and die? Why then did they come so far from home to throw away their lives and to fatten a foreign soil with their blood?" They added, that "this was a robbery of their native land, which, while living, it is our duty to cultivate, to defend and to embellish; and to which after our death we owe our bodies, which we received from it, which it has fed, and which in their turn ought to feed it."

The Emperor was not ignorant of these warnings, but he would not suffer his resolution to be shaken by them. The uneasiness which had again seized him betrayed itself in angry orders. It was then that he caused the churches of the Kremlin to be stripped of every thing that could serve for a trophy to the grand army. These objects, devoted to destruction by the Russians themselves, belonged, he said, to the conquerors by the two-fold right conferred by victory, and still more by the conflagration.

It required long efforts to remove the gigantic cross from the steeple of Ivan the Great, to the possession of which the Russians attached the salvation of their empire. The Emperor determined that it should adorn the dome of the invalids, at Paris. During the work it was remarked that a great number of ravens kept flying round this cross, and that Napoleon, weary of their hoa.r.s.e croaking, exclaimed, that "it seemed as if these flocks of ill-omened birds meant to defend it." We cannot pretend to tell all that he thought in this critical situation, but it is well known that he was accessible to every kind of presentiment.

His daily excursions, always illumined by a brilliant sun, in which he strove himself to perceive and to make others recognize his star, did not amuse him. To the sullen silence of inanimate Moscow was superadded that of the surrounding deserts, and the still more menacing silence of Alexander. It was not the faint sound of the footsteps of our soldiers wandering in this vast sepulchre, that could rouse our Emperor from his reverie, and s.n.a.t.c.h him from his painful recollections and still more painful antic.i.p.ations.

His nights in particular became irksome to him. He pa.s.sed part of them with Count Daru. It was then only that he admitted the danger of his situation. "From Wilna to Moscow what submission, what point of support, rest or retreat, marks his power? It is a vast, bare and desert field of battle, in which his diminished army is imperceptible, insulated, and as it were lost in the horrors of an immense void. In this country of foreign manners and religion, he has not conquered a single individual; he is in fact master only of the ground on which he stands. That which he has just quitted and left behind him is no more his than that which he has not yet reached. Insufficient for these vast deserts, he is lost as it were in their immense s.p.a.ce."

He then reviewed the different resolutions of which he still had the choice. "People imagined," he said, "that he had nothing to do but march, without considering that it would take a month to refit his army and to evacuate his hospitals; that if he relinquished his wounded, the Cossacks would celebrate daily triumphs over his sick and his stragglers. He would appear to fly. All Europe would resound with the report! Europe, which envied him, which was seeking a rival under whom to rally, and which imagined that it had found such a rival in Alexander."

Then appreciating all the power which he derived from the notion of his infallibility, he shuddered at the idea of giving it the first blow.

"What a frightful series of dangerous wars would date from his first retrograde step! Let not then his inactivity be censured! As if I did not know," added he, "that in a military point of view Moscow is of no value! But Moscow is not a military position, it is a political position. People look upon me as general there, when in fact I am Emperor!" He then exclaimed that "in politics a person ought never to recede, never to retrograde, never to admit himself to be wrong, as it lessened his consideration; that when mistaken, he ought to persevere, in order to give him the appearance of being in the right."

On this account he adhered to his own opinion with that tenacity which, on other occasions, was his best quality, but in this case his worst defect.

His distress meanwhile increased. He knew that he could not rely on the Prussian army: an intimation from too authentic a source, addressed to Berthier, extinguished his confidence in the support of the Austrians.

He was sensible that Kutusoff was playing with him, but he had gone so far, that he could neither advance nor stay where he was, nor retreat, nor fight with honour and success. Thus alternately impelled and held back by all that can decide and dissuade, he remained upon those ashes, ceasing to hope, but continuing to desire.

The letter of which Lauriston was the bearer had been dispatched on the 6th of October; the answer to it could scarcely arrive before the 20th; and yet in spite of so many threatening demonstrations, the pride, the policy, and perhaps the health of Napoleon induced him to pursue the worst of all courses, that of waiting for this answer, and of trusting to time which was destroying him. Daru, like his other grandees, was astonished to find in him no longer that prompt decision, variable and rapid as the circ.u.mstances that called it forth; they a.s.serted, that his genius could no longer accommodate itself to them; they placed it to the account of his natural obstinacy, which led to his elevation, and was likely to cause his downfall.

But in this extremely critical warlike position, which by its complication with a political position, became the most delicate which ever existed, it was not to be expected that a character like his, which had hitherto been so great from its unshaken constancy, would make a speedy renunciation of the object which he had proposed to himself ever since he left Witepsk.

CHAP. XI.

Napoleon however, was completely aware of his situation. To him every thing seemed lost if he receded in the face of astonished Europe, and every thing saved if he could yet overcome Alexander in determination.

He appreciated but too well the means that were left him to shake the constancy of his rival; he knew that the number of effective troops, that his situation, the season, in short every thing would become daily more and more unfavourable to him; but he reckoned upon that force of illusion which gave him his renown. Till that day he had borrowed from it a real and never-failing strength; he endeavoured therefore to keep up by specious arguments the confidence of his people, and perhaps also the faint hope that was yet left to himself.

Moscow, empty of inhabitants, no longer furnished him with any thing to lay hold of. "It is no doubt a misfortune," said he, "but this misfortune is not without its advantage. Had it been otherwise, he would not have been able to keep order in so large a city, to overawe a population of three hundred thousand souls, and to sleep in the Kremlin without having his throat cut. They have left us nothing but ruins, but at least we are quiet among them. Millions have no doubt slipped through our hands, but how many millions is Russia losing! Her commerce is ruined for a century to come. The nation is thrown back fifty years; this, of itself, is an important result. When the first moment of enthusiasm is past, this reflexion will fill them with consternation."

The conclusion which he drew was, that so violent a shock would convulse the throne of Alexander, and force that prince to sue for peace.

If he reviewed his different _corps d'armee_, as their reduced battalions now presented but a narrow front, which he had traversed in a moment, this diminution vexed him; and whether he wished to dissemble for the sake of his enemies or his own people, he declared that the practice hitherto pursued, of ranging the men three deep, was wrong, and that two were sufficient; he therefore ordered that in future his infantry should be drawn up in two ranks only.

Nay, more, he insisted that the inflexibility of the _states of situation_ should give way to this illusion. He disputed their results.

The obstinacy of Count Lobau could not overcome his: he was desirous no doubt of making his aide-de-camp understand what he wished others to believe, and that nothing could shake his resolution.

Murat, nevertheless, transmitted to him tidings of the distress of his advanced guard. They terrified Berthier; but Napoleon sent for the officer who brought them, pressed him with his interrogatories, daunted him with his looks, brow-beat him with his incredulity. The a.s.sertions of Murat's envoy lost much of their a.s.surance. Napoleon took advantage of his hesitation to keep up the hopes of Berthier, and to persuade him that matters were not yet so very urgent; and he sent back the officer to Murat's camp with the opinion which he would no doubt propagate, that the Emperor was immoveable, that he doubtless had his reasons for thus persisting, and that they must all redouble their exertions.

Meanwhile the att.i.tude of his army seconded his wishes. Most of the officers persevered in their confidence. The common soldiers, who, seeing their whole lives in the present moment and expecting but little from the future, concerned themselves but little about it, retained their thoughtlessness, the most valuable of their qualities. The rewards, however, which the Emperor bestowed profusely upon them in the daily reviews, were received only with a sedate joy, mingled with some degree of dejection. The vacant places that were just filled up were yet dyed with blood. These favours were threatening.

On the other hand, ever since they had left Wilna many of them had thrown away their winter garments, that they might load themselves with provisions. Their shoes were worn by the length of the way, and the rest of their apparel by the actions in which they had been engaged; but, in spite of all, their att.i.tude was still lofty. They carefully concealed their wretched plight from the notice of the Emperor, and appeared before him with their arms bright and in the best order. In this first court of the palace of the Czars, eight hundred leagues from their resources, and after so many battles and bivouacs, they were anxious to appear still clean, ready and smart; for herein consists the pride of the soldier: here they piqued themselves upon it the more on account of the difficulty, in order to astonish, and because man prides himself on every thing that requires extraordinary effort.

The Emperor complaisantly affected to know no better, catching at every thing to keep up his hopes, when all at once the first snows fell. With them fell all the illusions with which he had endeavoured to surround himself. From that moment he thought of nothing but retreat, without, however, p.r.o.nouncing the word, and yet no positive order for it could be obtained from him. He merely said, that in twenty days the army must be in winter-quarters, and he urged the departure of his wounded. On this, as on other occasions, he would not consent to the voluntary relinquishment of any thing, however trifling; there was a deficiency of horses for his artillery, now too numerous for an army so reduced; it did not signify, and he flew into a pa.s.sion at the proposal to leave part of it in Moscow. "No; the enemy would make a trophy of it."--and he insisted that every thing should go along with him.

In this desert country, he gave orders for the purchase of twenty thousand horses, and he expected forage for two months to be provided, on a tract where the most distant and dangerous excursions were not sufficient for the supply of the pa.s.sing day. Some of his officers were astonished to hear orders which it was so impossible to execute; but we have already seen that he sometimes issued such orders to deceive his enemies, and most frequently to indicate to his own troops the extent of his necessities, and the exertions which they ought to make for the purpose of supplying them.

His distress manifested itself only in some paroxysms of ill humour. It was in the morning at his levee. There, amid the a.s.sembled chiefs, in whose anxious looks he imagined he could read disapprobation, he seemed desirous to awe them by the severity of his att.i.tude, by his sharp tone and his abrupt language. From the paleness of his face, it was evident that Truth, whose best time for obtaining a hearing is in the darkness of night, had oppressed him grievously by her presence, and tired him with her unwelcome light. Sometimes, on these occasions, his bursting heart would overflow, and pour forth his sorrows around him by movements of impatience; but so far from lightening his grief, he aggravated them by those acts of injustice for which he reproached himself, and which he was afterwards anxious to repair.

It was to Count Daru alone that he unbosomed himself frankly, but without weakness. He said, "he should march upon Kutusoff, crush or drive him back, and then turn suddenly towards Smolensk." Daru, who had before approved this course, replied, that "it was now too late; that the Russian army was reinforced, his own weakened; his victory forgotten; that the moment his troops should turn their faces towards France, they would slip away from him by degrees; that each soldier, laden with booty, would try to get the start of the army, for the purpose of selling it in France."--"What then is to be done?" exclaimed the Emperor. "Remain here," replied Daru, "make one vast entrenched camp of Moscow and pa.s.s the winter in it. He would answer for it that there would be no want of bread and salt: the rest foraging on a large scale would supply. Such of the horses as they could not procure food for might be salted down. As to lodgings, if there were not houses enough, the cellars might make up the deficiency. Here we might stay till the return of spring, when our reinforcements and all Lithuania in arms should come to relieve, to join us, and to complete the conquest."

After listening to this proposal the Emperor was for some time silent and thoughtful; he then replied, "This is a lion's counsel! But what would Paris say? what would they do there? what have they been doing for the last three weeks that they have not heard from me? who knows what would be the effect of a suspension of communications for six months!

No; France would not accustom itself to my absence, and Prussia and Austria would take advantage of it."

Still Napoleon did not decide either to stay or to depart. Overcome in this struggle of obstinacy, he deferred from day to day the avowal of his defeat. Amid the dreadful storm of men and elements which was gathering around him, his ministers and his aides-de-camp saw him pa.s.s whole days in discussing the merits of some new verses which he had received, or the regulations for the _Comedie Francaise_ at Paris, which he took three evenings to finish. As they were acquainted with his deep anxiety, they admired the strength of his genius, and the facility with which he could take off or fix the whole force of his attention on whatever he pleased.

It was merely remarked that he prolonged his meals, which had hitherto been so simple and so short. He seemed desirous of stifling thought by repletion. He would then pa.s.s whole hours, half reclined, as if torpid, and awaiting, with a novel in his hand, the catastrophe of his terrible history. On beholding this obstinate and inflexible character struggling with impossibility, his officers would then observe to one another, that having arrived at the summit of his glory, he no doubt foresaw that from his first retrograde step would date its decline; that for this reason he continued immoveable, clinging to and lingering a few moments longer on this elevation.

Kutusoff, meanwhile, was gaining that time which we were losing. His letters to Alexander described "his army as being in the midst of abundance; his recruits arriving from all quarters and being trained; his wounded recovering in the bosom of their families; the peasants, some in arms, some on the look out from the tops of steeples, while others were stealing into our habitations and even into the Kremlin.

Rostopchin received from them a daily report of what was pa.s.sing at Moscow, as before its capture. If they undertook to be our guides, it was for the purpose of delivering us into his hands. His partizans were every day bringing in some hundreds of prisoners. Every thing concurred to destroy the enemy's army and to strengthen his own; to serve him and to betray us; in a word, the campaign, which was over for us, was but just about to begin for them."

Kutusoff neglected no advantage. He made his camp ring with the news of the victory of Salamanca. "The French," said he, "are expelled from Madrid. The hand of the Most High presses heavily upon Napoleon. Moscow will be his prison, his grave, and that of all his grand army. We shall soon take France in Russia!" It was in such language that the Russian general addressed his troops and his Emperor; and nevertheless he still kept up appearances with Murat. At once bold and crafty, he contrived slowly to prepare a sudden and impetuous warfare, and to cover his plans for our destruction with demonstrations of kindness and honeyed words.

At length, after several days of illusion, the charm was dispelled. A Cossack completely dissolved it. This barbarian fired at Murat, at the moment when that prince came as usual to show himself at the advanced posts. Murat was exasperated; he declared to Miloradowitch that an armistice which was incessantly violated was at an end; and that thenceforward each ought to put confidence in himself alone.

At the same time he apprised the Emperor, that a woody country on his left might favour attempts against his flank and rear; that his first line, backed against a ravine, might be precipitated into it; that in short the position which he occupied, in advance of a defile, was dangerous, and rendered a retrograde movement absolutely necessary. But Napoleon would not consent to this step, though he had at first pointed out Woronowo as a more secure position. In this war, still in his view rather political than military, he dreaded above all the appearance of receding. He preferred risking every thing.

At the same time, on the 13th of October, he sent back Lauriston to Murat, to examine the position of the vanguard. As to the Emperor, either from a tenacious adherence to his first hope, or that any disposition which might be construed into a preparation for retreat, equally shocked his pride and his policy, a singular negligence was remarked in his preparations for departure. He nevertheless thought of it, for that very day he traced his plan of retreat by Woloklamsk, Zubtzow, and Bieloe, on Witepsk. A moment afterwards he dictated another on Smolensk. Junot received orders to burn on the 21st, at Kolotskoi, all the muskets of the wounded, and to blow up the ammunition waggons.

D'Hilliers was to occupy Elnia, and to form magazines at that place. It was not till the 17th, at Moscow, that Berthier thought of causing leather to be distributed for the first time among the troops.

This major-general was a wretched subst.i.tute for his princ.i.p.al on this critical occasion. In a strange country and climate, he recommended no new precaution, and he expected the minutest details to be dictated by his Emperor. They were forgotten. This negligence or want of foresight was attended with fatal consequences. In an army, each division of which was commanded by a marshal, a prince, or even a king, one relied perhaps too much on the other. Besides, Berthier gave no orders of himself; he thought it enough to repeat exactly the very letter of Napoleon's commands; for, as to their spirit, either from fatigue or habit, he was incessantly confounding the positive with the conjectural parts of those instructions.