History of the Expedition to Russia Part 43

CHAP. V.

The presence of a hostile division deprived us of all hope of deceiving the Russian admiral. We were expecting every instant to hear the whole fire of his artillery directed upon our workmen; and even if he did not discover them until daylight, their labours would not then be sufficiently advanced; and the opposite bank, being low and marshy, was too much commanded by Tchaplitz's positions to make it at all possible for us to force a pa.s.sage.

When he quitted Borizof, therefore, at ten o'clock at night, Napoleon imagined that he was setting out for a most desperate contest. He settled himself for the night, with the 6,400 guards which still remained to him, at Staroi-Borizof, a chateau belonging to Prince Radzivil, situated on the right of the road from Borizof to Studzianka, and equidistant from these two points.

He pa.s.sed the remainder of that night on his feet, going out every moment, either to listen, or to repair to the pa.s.sage where his destiny was accomplishing; for the magnitude of his anxieties so completely filled his hours, that as each revolved, he fancied that it was morning.

Several times he was reminded of his mistake by his attendants.

Darkness had scarcely disappeared when he joined Oudinot. The sight of danger tranquillized him, as it always did; but on seeing the Russian fires and their position, his most determined generals, such as Rapp, Mortier, and Ney, exclaimed, "that if the Emperor escaped this danger, they must absolutely believe in the influence of his star!" Murat himself thought it was now time to think of nothing but saving Napoleon.

Some of the Poles proposed it to him.

The Emperor was waiting for the approach of daylight in one of the houses on the borders of the river, on a steep bank which was crowned with Oudinot's artillery. Murat obtained access to him; he declared to his brother-in-law, "that he looked upon the pa.s.sage as impracticable; he urged him to save his person while it was yet time. He informed him that he might, without any danger, cross the Berezina a few leagues above Studzianka; that in five days he would reach Wilna; that some brave and determined Poles, perfectly acquainted with all the roads, had offered themselves for his guards, and to be responsible for his safety."

But Napoleon rejected this proposition as an infamous plan, as a cowardly flight, and was indignant that any one should dare to think for a moment that he would abandon his army, so long as it was in danger. He was not, however, at all displeased with Murat, probably because that prince had afforded him an opportunity of showing his firmness, or rather because he saw nothing in his proposal but a mark of devotion, and because the first quality in the eyes of sovereigns is attachment to their persons.

At that moment the appearance of daylight made the Russian fires grow pale and disappear. Our troops stood to their arms, the artillerymen placed themselves by their pieces, the generals were observing, and the looks of all were steadily directed to the opposite bank, preserving that silence which betokens great expectation, and is the forerunner of great danger.

Since the day before, every blow struck by our pontonniers, echoing among the woody heights, must, we concluded, have attracted the whole attention of the enemy. The first dawn of the 26th was therefore expected to display to us his battalions and artillery, drawn up, in front of the weak scaffolding, to the construction of which Eble had yet to devote eight hours more. Doubtless they were only waiting for daylight to enable them to point their cannon with better aim. When day appeared, we saw their fires abandoned, the bank deserted, and upon the heights, thirty pieces of artillery in full retreat. A single bullet of theirs would have been sufficient to annihilate the only plank of safety, which we were about to fix, in order to unite the two banks; but that artillery retreated exactly as ours was placed in battery.

Farther off, we perceived the rear of a long column, which was moving off towards Borizof without ever looking behind it; one regiment of infantry, however, and twelve cannon remained, but without taking up any position; we also saw a horde of Cossacks wandering about the skirts of the wood: they formed the rear-guard of Tchaplitz's division, six thousand strong, which was thus retiring, as if for the purpose of delivering up the pa.s.sage to us.

The French, at first could hardly venture to believe their eyes. At last, transported with joy, they clapped their hands, and uttered loud shouts. Rapp and Oudinot rushed precipitately into the house where the Emperor was. "Sire," they said to him, "the enemy has just raised his camp, and quitted his position!"--"It is not possible!" he replied; but Ney and Murat just then entered and confirmed this report. Napoleon immediately darted out; he looked, and could just see the last files of Tchaplitz's column getting farther off and disappearing in the woods.

Transported with joy, he exclaimed, "I have outwitted the admiral!"

During this first movement, two of the enemy's pieces re-appeared, and fired. An order was given to remove them by a discharge of our artillery.

One salvo was enough; it was an act of imprudence which was not repeated, for fear of its recalling Tchaplitz. The bridge was as yet scarcely begun; it was eight o'clock, and the first tressels were only then fixing.

The Emperor, however, impatient to get possession of the opposite bank, pointed it out to the bravest. Jacqueminot, aide-de-camp to the Duke of Reggio, and the Lithuanian count Predziecski, were the first who threw themselves into the river, and in spite of the pieces of ice, which cut and bled the chests and sides of their horses, succeeded in reaching the other side. Sourd, chief of the squadron, and fifty cha.s.seurs of the 7th, each carrying a voltigeur _en croupe_, followed them, as well as two frail rafts which transported four hundred men in twenty trips. The Emperor having expressed a wish to have a prisoner to interrogate, Jacqueminot, who overheard him, had scarcely crossed the river, when he saw one of Tchaplitz's soldiers; he rushed after, attacked, and disarmed him; then seizing and placing him on the bow of his saddle, he brought him through the river and the ice to Napoleon.

About one o'clock the bank was entirely cleared of the Cossacks, and the bridge for the infantry finished. The division Legrand crossed it rapidly with its cannon, the men shouting "Vive l'Empereur!" in the presence of their sovereign, who was himself actively pressing the pa.s.sage of the artillery, and encouraged his brave soldiers by his voice and example.

He exclaimed, when he saw them fairly in possession of the opposite bank, "Behold my star again appear!" for he was a believer in fatality, like all conquerors, those men, who, having the largest accounts with Fortune, are fully aware how much they are indebted to her, and who, moreover, having no intermediate power between themselves and heaven, feel themselves more immediately under its protection.

CHAP. VI.

At that moment, a Lithuanian n.o.bleman, disguised as a peasant, arrived from Wilna with the news of Schwartzenberg's victory over Sacken.

Napoleon appeared pleased in proclaiming it aloud, with the addition, that "Schwartzenberg had immediately returned upon the heels of Tchitchakof, and that he was coming to our a.s.sistance." A conjecture, to which the disappearance of Tchaplitz gave considerable probability.

Meantime, as the first bridge which was just finished had only been made for the infantry, a second was begun immediately after, a hundred fathoms higher up, for the artillery and baggage, which was not finished until four o'clock in the afternoon. During that interval, the Duke of Reggio, with the rest of the second corps, and Dombrowski's division, followed General Legrand to the other side; they formed about seven thousand men.

The marshal's first care was to secure the road to Zembin, by a detachment which chased some Cossacks from it; to push the enemy towards Borizof, and to keep him as far back as possible from the pa.s.sage of Studzianka.

Tchaplitz, in obedience to the admiral's orders, proceeded as far as Stakhowa, a village close to Borizof, he then turned back, and encountered the first troops of Oudinot commanded by Albert. Both sides halted. The French, finding themselves rather too far off from their main body, only wanted to gain time, and the Russian general waited for orders.

Tchitchakof had found himself in one of those difficult situations, in which prepossession, being compelled to fluctuate in uncertainty between several points at once, has no sooner determined and fixed upon one side, than it removes and gets overturned upon another.

His march from Minsk to Borizof in three columns, not only by the high road, but by the roads of Antonopolia, Logosk, and Zembin, showed that his whole attention was at first directed to that part of the Berezina, above Borizof. Feeling himself then so strong upon his left, he felt only that his right was weakened, and in consequence, his anxiety was entirely transferred to that side.

The error which led him into that false direction had other and stronger foundations. Kutusoff's instructions directed his responsibility to that point. Ertell, who commanded twelve thousand men near Bobruisk, refused to quit his cantonments, to follow Dombrowski, and to come and defend that part of the river. He alleged, as his justification for refusal, the danger of a distemper among the cattle, a pretext unheard of and improbable, but perfectly true, as Tchitchakof himself has admitted.

The admiral adds further, that information sent to him by Wittgenstein directed his anxiety towards Lower Berezino, as well as the supposition, natural enough, that the presence of that general on the right flank of the grand army and above Borizof, would push Napoleon below that town.

The recollection of the pa.s.sages of Charles XII. and of Davoust at Berezino, might also be another of his motives. By taking that direction, Napoleon would not only escape Wittgenstein, but he might retake Minsk, and form a junction with Schwartzenberg. This last was a serious consideration with Tchitchakof, Minsk being his conquest, and Schwartzenberg his first adversary. Lastly, and princ.i.p.ally, Oudinot's demonstration near Ucholoda, and probably the report of the Jews, determined him.

The admiral, completely deceived, had therefore resolved, on the evening of the 25th, to descend the Berezina, at the very moment that Napoleon had determined to re-ascend it. It might almost be said that the French Emperor dictated the Russian general's resolution, the time for adopting it, the precise moment, and every detail of its execution. Both started at the same time from Borizof, Napoleon for Studzianka, Tchitchakof for Szabaszawiczy, turning their backs to each other as if by mutual agreement, and the admiral recalling all the troops which he had above Borizof, with the exception of a small body of light troops, and without even taking the precaution of breaking up the roads.

Notwithstanding, at Szabaszawiczy, he was not more than five or six leagues from the pa.s.sage which was effectuating. On the morning of the 26th he must have been informed of it. The bridge of Borizof was only three hours' march from the point of attack. He had left fifteen thousand men before that bridge; he might therefore have returned in person to that point, rejoined Tchaplitz at Stakhowa, on the same day made an attack, or at least made preparations for it, and on the following day, the 27th, overthrown with eighteen thousand men the seven thousand soldiers of Oudinot and Dombrowski; and finally resumed, in front of the Emperor and of Studzianka, the position which Tchaplitz had quitted the day before.

But great errors are seldom repaired with the same readiness with which they are committed; either because it is in our nature to be at first doubtful of them, and that no one is disposed to admit them until they are completely certain; or because they confuse, and in the distrust of our own judgment, we hesitate, and require the support of other opinions.

Thus it was, that the admiral lost the remainder of the 26th and the whole of the 27th in consultations, in feeling his way, and in preparations. The presence of Napoleon and his grand army, of the weakness of which it was impossible for him to have any idea, dazzled him. He saw the Emperor every where; before his right, in the simulated preparations for a pa.s.sage; opposite his centre at Borizof, because in fact the arrival of the successive portions of our army filled that place with movements; and finally, at Studzianka before his left, where the Emperor really was.

On the 27th, so little had he recovered from his error that he made his cha.s.seurs reconnoitre and attack Borizof; they crossed over upon the beams of the burnt bridge, but were repulsed by the soldiers of Partouneaux's division.

On the same day, while he was thus irresolute, Napoleon, with about five thousand guards, and Ney's corps, now reduced to six hundred men, crossed the Berezina about two o'clock in the afternoon; he posted himself in reserve to Oudinot, and secured the outlet from the bridges against Tchitchakof's future efforts.

He had been preceded by a crowd of baggage and stragglers. Numbers of them continued to cross the river after him as long as daylight lasted.

The army of Victor, at the same time, succeeded the guard in its position on the heights of Studzianka.

CHAP. VII.

Hitherto all had gone on well. But Victor, in pa.s.sing through Borizof, had left there Partouneaux with his division. That general had orders to stop the enemy in the rear of that town, to drive before him the numerous stragglers who had taken shelter there, and to rejoin Victor before the close of the day. It was the first time that Partouneaux had seen the disorder of the grand army. He was anxious, like Davoust at the beginning of the retreat, to hide the traces of it from the Cossacks of Kutusoff, who were at his heels. This fruitless attempt, the attacks of Platof by the high road of Orcha, and those of Tchitchakof by the burnt bridge of Borizof, detained him in that place until the close of the day.

He was preparing to quit it, when an order reached him from the Emperor himself, to remain there all night. Napoleon's idea, no doubt, was, in that manner to direct the whole attention of the three Russian generals upon Borizof, and that Partouneaux's keeping them back upon that point, would allow him sufficient time to operate the pa.s.sage of his whole army.

But Wittgenstein left Platof to pursue the French army along the high road, and directed his own march more to the right. He debouched the same evening on the heights which border the Berezina, between Borizof and Studzianka, intercepted the road between these two points, and captured all that was found there. A crowd of stragglers, who were driven back on Partouneaux, apprised him that he was separated from the rest of the army.

Partouneaux did not hesitate: although he had no more than three cannon with him, and three thousand five hundred soldiers, he determined to cut his way through, made his dispositions accordingly, and began his march.

He had at first to march along a slippery road, crowded with baggage and runaways; with a violent wind blowing directly in his face, and in a dark and icy-cold night. To these obstacles were shortly added the fire of several thousand enemies, who lined the heights upon his right. As long as he was only attacked in flank, he proceeded; but shortly after, he had to meet it in front from numberless troops well posted, whose bullets traversed his column through and through.

This unfortunate division then got entangled in a shallow; a long file of five or six hundred carriages embarra.s.sed all its movements; seven thousand terrified stragglers, howling with terror and despair, rushed into the midst of its feeble lines. They broke through them, caused its platoons to waver, and were every moment involving in their disorder fresh soldiers who got disheartened. It became necessary to retreat, in order to rally, and take a better position, but in falling back, they encountered Platof's cavalry.

Half of our combatants had already perished, and the fifteen hundred soldiers who remained found themselves surrounded by three armies and by a river.

In this situation, a flag of truce came, in the name of Wittgenstein and fifty thousand men, to order the French to surrender. Partouneaux rejected the summons. He recalled into his ranks such of his stragglers as yet retained their arms; he wanted to make a last effort, and clear a sanguinary pa.s.sage to the bridge of Studzianka; but these men, who were formerly so brave, were now so degraded by their miseries, that they would no longer make use of their arms.