Napoleon's Campaign in Russia, Anno 1812; Medico-Historical Part 12

One witness writes: "Little ceremony was observed in disposing of the dead; every morning I heard how those who had died during the night were thrown down the stairs or over the balcony into the yard, and by counting these sinister sounds of falling bodies we knew how many had died during the night."

The brutality of the guards was beyond description. First Lieutenant von Grolman, one of the most highly educated officers of the Badensian contingent, was thrown down the stairway because this (seriously wounded) officer had disturbed the inspector during the latter's leisure hour.

Beating with the kantchou was nothing unusual.

A Weimaranian musician, Theuss, has described some guileful tortures practiced on the prisoners, which are so revolting that I dare not write them. They are given in Holzhausen's book.

In their despair the prisoners, especially the officers among them, sent pet.i.tions to Duke Alexander of Wuerttemberg, to the Tzar, to the Grand Duke Constantine, and to the Ladies of the Russian Court. The Tzar and his brother Constantine came and visited the hospitals. They were struck by what they saw, and ordered relief. Officers were permitted to walk about the city, and many obtained quarters in private houses. Those who could not yet leave the gloomy wards of the hospitals were better cared for.

It is touching to read Yelin's narration how the emaciated arms of those in the hospitals were stretched out when their comrades, returning from a promenade in the city, brought them a few apples.

As they were no longer guarded as closely as before, many succeeded in escaping. Captain Roeder was one of them; Yelin was offered aid to flee, but he remained because he had given his word of honor to remain.

But most of these favors came too late, only one tenth were left that could be saved, the others had succ.u.mbed to their sufferings or died from typhus.

A pestilential odor filled Wilna. Heaps of cadavers were burnt and when this was found to be too expensive, thrown into the Wilia. Few of the higher officers were laid at rest in the cemetery, among them General von Roeder who as long as he was able had tried everything in his power to ameliorate the condition of his soldiers. Holzhausen brings the facsimile of a letter of his, dated Wilna, December 30th., to the King of Wuerttemberg which proves his care for his soldiers. He died on January 6th., 1813.

FROM WILNA TO KOWNO

While the prisoners of Wilna were suffering these nameless cruelties, the unfortunate army marched to reach the border of Russia at Kowno, the same Kowno where the Grand Army six months before had been seen in all its military splendor, crossing the Niemen.

They had now to march 75 miles, a three days' march to arrive there.

The conditions were about the same as those on the march from the Beresina to Wilna. Still the same misery, frost, and hunger, scenes of murder, fire.

The description of the details would in general be a repet.i.tion, with little variation.

The following is an account of the last days of the retreat taken from a letter of Berthier to the Emperor.

When the army entered Wilna on December 8th., almost all the men were chilled by cold, and despite the commands of Murat and Berthier, despite the fact that the Russians were at the gates, both officers and soldiers kept to their quarters and refused to march.

However, on the 10th, the march upon Kowno was begun. But the extreme cold and the excess of snow completed the rout of the army. The final disbanding occurred on the 10th, and 11th., only a struggling column remained, extending along the road, strewn with corpses, setting out at daybreak to halt at night in utter confusion. In fact, there was no army left. How could it have subsisted with 25 degrees of cold? The onslaught, alas, was not of the foe, but of the harshest and severest of seasons fraught with crippling effect and untold suffering.

Berthier, as well as Murat, would have wished to remain in Kowno through the 12th., but the disorder was extreme. Houses were pillaged and sacked, half the town was burned down, the Niemen was being crossed at all points, and it was impossible to stem the tide of fugitives. An escort was barely available for the protection of the King of Naples, the generals, and the Imperial eagles. And all amidst the cold, the intense cold, stupefying and benumbing!

Four fifths of the army--or what bore the name of such, though reduced to a mere conglomeration and bereft of fighting men--had frozen limbs; and when Koenigsberg was reached, in a state of complete disorganisation, the surgeons were constantly employed in amputating fingers and toes.

Dr. W. Zelle, a German military surgeon, in his book "1812" describes the last days of the army. Kowno was occupied by a considerable force of artillery, with two German battalions, and it contained also very large supplies, a great deal of ammunition, provisions, clothing, and arms of various kinds. About an hour's march from Wilna the retreating ma.s.ses encountered the hill and defile of Ponary and it was at this point where the imperial treasure, so far conscientiously guarded by German troops from Baden and Wuerttemberg, was lost. When the leaders of the treasure became convinced of the impossibility to save it, the jaded horses not being able after 15 hours' effort to climb the ice covered hill, they had the wagons opened, the money chests broken, and the coin surrendered to the soldiers.

The sight of the gold brought new life even to the half frozen ones; they threw away their arms and were so greedy in loading themselves down with the mammon that many of them did not notice the approaching Cossacks until it was too late. Friend and foe, Frenchmen and Russians pillaged the wagons. Honor, money, and what little had remained of discipline, all was lost at this point.

However, side by side with these outrages, n.o.ble deeds could also be recorded. Numerous wagons with wounded officers had to be abandoned, the horses being too weak to take another step, and many of the soldiers disregarded everything to save these unfortunates, carrying them away on their shoulders. An adjutant of the emperor, Count Turenne, distributed the private treasure of the emperor among the soldiers of the Old Guard, and not one of these faithful men kept any of the money for himself. All was honestly returned later on, and more than 6 millions of francs reached Danzig safely.

The retreat during these scenes and the following days, when the terrible cold caused more victims from hour to hour, was still covered by Ney whose iron const.i.tution defied all hardships. From five until ten at night he personally checked the advance of the enemy, during the night he marched, driving all stragglers before him. From seven in the morning until ten the rear guard rested, after which time they continued the daily fight.

His Bavarians numbered 260 on December 11th., 150 on the 17th. and on the 13th. the last 20 were taken prisoners. The corps had disappeared. The remainder of Loison's division and the garrison of Wilna diminished in the same manner until, finally, the rear guard consisted of only 60 men.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

What was left of the army reached Kowno on the 12th, after a long, tedious march, dying of cold and hunger. In Kowno there was an abundance of clothes, flour, and spirits. But the unrestrained soldiers broke the barrels, so that the spilled liquor formed a lake in the market place. The soldiers threw themselves down and by the hundreds drank until they were intoxicated. More than 1200 drunken men reeled through the streets, dropped drowsily upon the icy stones or into the snow, their sleep soon pa.s.sing into death. Of the entire corps of Eugene there remained only eight or ten officers with the prince. Only one day more (the 13th.) was the powerful Ney able, with the two German battalions of the garrison, to check the Cossacks, vigorously supported by the indefatigable generals, Gerard and Wrede. Not until the 14th., at 9 o'clock at night, did he begin to retreat, with the last of the men, after having destroyed the bridges over the Wilia and the Niemen. Always fighting, receding but not fleeing, his person formed the rear guard of this Grand Army which five months previous crossed the river at this very point, now, on the 14th, consisting of only 500 foot guards, 600 horse guards, and nine cannon.

It is n.o.body but Ney who still represents the Grand Army, who fires the last shot before he, the last Frenchman, crosses the bridge over the Niemen, which is blown up behind him. If we look upon the knightly conduct of Ney during the entire campaign we cannot but think how much greater he was than the heroes of Homer.

This man has demonstrated to the world upon this most terrible of all retreats that even fate is not able to subdue an imperturbable courage, that even the greatest adversity redounds to the glory of a hero.

More than a thousand times did Ney earn in Russia the epithet, "the bravest of the brave," and the legend which French tradition has woven around his person is quite justified. No mortal has ever performed such deeds of indomitable moral courage; all other heroes and exploits vanish in comparison!

Here, at the Niemen, the pursuit by the Russians came to an end for the time being. They, too, had suffered enormously.

Not less than 18 thousand Russians were sick in Wilna; Kutusoff's army was reduced to 35 thousand men, that of Wittgenstein from 50 thousand to 15 thousand. The entire Russian army, including the garrison of Riga, numbered not more than 100 thousand. The winter, this terrible ally of the Russians, exacted a high price for the a.s.sistance it had rendered them; of 10 thousand men who left the interior, well provided with all necessities, only 1700 reached Wilna; the troops of cavalry did not number more than 20 men.

In all the literature which I have examined I did not find a better description of the life and the struggle of the soldiers on the retreat than that given by General Heinrich von Brandt of his march from Zembin to Wilna. It is a vivid picture of many details from which we derive a full understanding of the great misery on the retreat in general.

I shall give an extensive extract in his own words:

"We arrived late at Zembin, where we found many bivouac fires. It was very cold. Here and there around the fires were lying dead soldiers.

"After a short rest, which had given us some new strength, we continued the march. If the stragglers arrive, we said to ourselves, we shall be lost; therefore, let us hurry and keep ahead of them. Our little column kept well together, but at every halt some men were missing. Toward daybreak the cold became more severe. While it was dark yet, we met a file of gunpowder carts carrying wounded; from a number of these vehicles we heard heart-rending clamors of some of the wounded asking us to give them death.

"At every moment we encountered dead or dying comrades, officers and soldiers, who were sitting on the road, exhausted from fatigue, awaiting their end. The sun rose blood-red; the cold was frightful. We stopped near a village where bivouac fires were burning. Around these fires were grouped living and dead soldiers. We lodged ourselves as well as we could and took from those who had retired from the scene of life--apparently during their sleep--anything that could be of service to us. I for my part helped myself to a pot in which I melted snow to make a soup from some bread crusts which I had in my pocket. We all relished this soup.

"After an hour's rest we resumed our march and about 30 hours after our departure we reached Plechtchenissi. During this time we had made 25 miles.

At Plechtchenissi we found, at a kind of farm, sick, wounded and dead, all lying pell-mell. There was no room for us in the house; we were obliged to camp outside, but great fires compensated us for the want of shelter.

"We decided to rest during part of the night. While some of the soldiers roasted slices of horse meat and others prepared oatmeal cakes from oats which they had found in the village, we tried to sleep. But the frightful scenes through which we had pa.s.sed kept us excited, and sleep would not come.

"Toward 1 o'clock in the morning we left for Molodetchno. The cold was frightful. Our way was marked by the light of the bivouac fires which were seen at intervals and by cadavers of men and horses lying everywhere, and as the moon and the stars were out we could see them well. Our column became smaller all the while, officers and men disappeared without our noticing their departure, without our knowing where they had fallen behind; and the cold increased constantly. When we stopped at some bivouac fire it seemed to us as if we were among the dead; n.o.body stirred, only occasionally would one or the other of those sitting around raise his head, look upon us with gla.s.sy eyes, rest again, probably never to rise again.

What made the march during that night especially disagreeable was the icy wind whipping our faces. Toward 8 o'clock in the morning we perceived a church tower. That is Molodetchno, we all cried with one voice. But to our disappointment we learned on our arrival that it was only Iliya, and that we were only half-way to Molodetchno.

"Iliya was not completely deserted by the inhabitants, but the troops that had pa.s.sed through it before us had left almost nothing eatable in the place. We found abode in some houses and for a while were protected from the cold which was by no means abating. In the farm of which we took possession we found a warm room and a good litter, which we owed to our predecessors.

"It was strange that none of us could sleep; we all were in a state of feverish excitement, and I attribute this to an indistinct fear; once asleep we might perhaps not awake again, as we had seen it happen a thousand times.

"The longer we remained at Iliya the more comfortable we felt, and we decided to stay there all day and wait for news. Soup of buckwheat, a large pot of boiled corn, some slices of roast horse meat, although all without salt, formed a meal which we thought delicious."

Von Brandt describes how they took off their garments, or their wrappings which served as garments, to clean and repair them; how some of his men found leather with which they enveloped their feet. The day and the night pa.s.sed, and all had some sleep. But they had to leave.

"Some of the men refused to go; one of them when urged to come along said: 'Captain, let me die here; we all are to perish, a few days sooner or later is of no consequence.' He was wounded, but not seriously, a bullet had pa.s.sed through his arm; it was a kind of apathy which had come over him, and he could not be persuaded. He remained and probably died.

"We left; the cold was almost unbearable. Along the road we found bivouacs, at which one detachment relieved the other; the succeeding surpa.s.sing the preceding one in misery and distress. Everywhere, on the road and in the bivouacs, the dead were lying, most of them stripped of their clothes.

"It was imperative to keep moving, for remaining too long at the bivouac fires meant death, and dangerous was it also to remain behind, separated from the troop. (The danger of being alone under such circ.u.mstances as existed here has been pointed out by Beaupre.)

"We marched to Molodetchno where the great road commences and where we expected some amelioration, and, indeed, we found it. The everlasting cold was now the princ.i.p.al cause of our sufferings.

"In the village there was some kind of order; we saw many soldiers bearing arms and of a general good appearance. The houses were not all deserted, neither were they as overcrowded as in other places through which we had pa.s.sed. We established ourselves in some of them situated on the road to Smorgoni, and we had reason to be satisfied with our choice. We bought bread at an enormous price, made soup of it which tasted very good to us, and we had plenty for all of us.