The Memoirs of General Baron de Marbot Part 17

Loaded with these provisions, I held council in undertones with Bro, Mainville, and Stoch, who, as badly placed as I, were shivering with cold and just as hungry. The conclusion reached in this deliberation was that as Prince Murat was asleep and as his provisions were due to arrive shortly, he would be able to have a meal when he woke; while we would be set on horseback and sent off in all directions without anyone asking if we had eaten or not; so without straining our consciences too much, we decided to demolish the contents of the basket, which we did with great rapidity. I don't know if this was pardonable, but what I do know is that I have had few meals which I enjoyed more.

While the troops who had been engaged at Golymin were resting, Napoleon, with all his Guard was wandering about on the plain, because, alerted by the sound of gunfire, the Emperor had hurriedly left the chateau where he was installed some two leagues from Golymin, with the intention of joining us by marching as the crow flies in the direction of the fires. But the ground was so soaked, the plain so intersected by bogs and the weather so awful, that it took him all night to make those two leagues, and he did not arrive on the field of battle until the fighting was long over.

On the same day as the fight at Golymin, Marshal Lannes, with no more than twenty thousand men, attacked at Pultusk some forty thousand Russians who were retreating, and inflicted immense losses on them without being able to stop them, so great was their superiority in numbers.

For the Emperor to have been able to pursue the Russians it would have required a frost to harden the ground which, on the contrary, was now so soft and sodden that one sank in at every step, and several men, notably the batman of an officer in 7th Corps, were drowned with their horses in the mud. It had now become impossible to move the artillery and to venture further into this unknown territory; besides which the troops lacked food and even boots, and they were extremely tired. These considerations decided Napoleon to place the whole army in cantonment in front of the Vistula, from the outskirts of Warsaw to the gates of Danzig. The soldiers, billeted in the villages, were at last sheltered from the weather, received some rations and were able to repair their equipment.

The Emperor returned to Warsaw to prepare for a new campaign.

The divisions of Augereau's corps were spread in the villages around Plock, if one can give that name to a confused heap of lowly shacks, inhabited by unwashed Jews; but almost all the so-called towns in Poland are built like this and have similar inhabitants. The landowners, great and small, live in the country where they employ their peasants to cultivate their estates.

The marshal was lodged in Christka, a sort of chateau built of wood, as was customary in the country. He found in this manor some reasonable accommodation, while the aides-de-camp settled wherever they could in the rooms and barns. As for me, by ferreting around I found in the gardener's quarters a fairly good room with a fireplace; I settled in there with two friends, and leaving to the gardener and his family their very unsavoury beds, we made some out of planks and straw, on which we were very comfortable.

Chap. 33.

We celebrated at Christka the new year of 1807, which was very nearly the last year of my life. It, however, began very pleasantly for me, since the Emperor, who had not shown any favour to Augereau's staff during the Austerlitz campaign, fully repaired this oversight by heaping us with rewards. Colonel Albert was promoted to brigadier-general, Major Ma.s.sy to lieutenant-colonel of the 44th Line regiment; several aides-de-camp were decorated; and finally the lieutenants, Bro, Mainville, and I, were made captains. This promotion gave me more than usual pleasure, since I had done nothing remarkable to earn it, and I was only twenty-four years old. Marshal Augereau, when he gave us our brevets of captain, said to Mainville, Bro, and me, "Let's see which of you three is the first to become a colonel."

It was in fact I, who six years later commanded a regiment, while my comrades were still only captains: it is also true that in this period I had been wounded six times!

Once we had taken up winter quarters the enemy did the same, opposite to us but a considerable distance away. The Emperor expected that they would let us pa.s.s the winter in peace; however, our rest lasted only for a month; this sufficed but was not really enough.

The Russians, seeing the ground covered by snow and hardened by a very sharp frost, thought that this frigid weather would give the men from the north a great advantage over those from the south, unaccustomed to the severe cold. They resolved therefore to attack us, and in order to do this they moved, screened by the immense forest which lay between us, the greater part of the troops who faced us before Warsaw, down to the lower Vistula, opposite the cantonments of Bernadotte and Ney, whom they hoped to surprise and overrun by weight of numbers before the Emperor with the other army corps could come to their aid. But Bernadotte and Ney put up a stiff resistance, and the Emperor had sufficient time to mount an attack with a considerable force on the enemy rear who, seeing themselves at risk of being cut off from their operational base, retreated towards Konigsberg (Kaliningrad). We had therefore, on the 1st of February, to quit our billets where we were reasonably comfortable, and restarting the war, to go and sleep in the snow.

At the head of the central column, commanded by the Emperor in person, was Prince Murat's cavalry, then came Marshal Soult's corps, supported by that of Augereau, finally came the Imperial Guard .

Marshal Davout's corps marched on the right flank of this huge column, and Marshal Ney's on the left. Such an agglomeration of troops heading for the same place soon strips the countryside of whatever food supplies are available, so we suffered much from hunger; only the Guard had wagons which carried food for distribution, the other corps lived on whatever they could find, that is to say they lacked practically everything.

I am not going to give any details of the actions which preceded the battle of Eylau, because Augereau's corps, which was in the second line, took no part in these various contacts, of which the most important occurred at Mohrungen, Bergfried, Guttstadt, and Valtersdorf. But at last, before the little town of Landsberg, the Russians, who had been chased for a week with a sword at their backs, decided to halt and make a stand. To do this, they placed eight elite battalions in an advantageous position, their right bounded by a village by the name of Hoff, their left by a thick wood, and their centre protected by a very steep-sided ravine, which could be crossed only by a narrow bridge. Eight cannons were placed in front of this line.

When the Emperor arrived opposite this position, he did not think it necessary to wait for the infantry of Marshal Soult, which was still several leagues behind, and attacked the Russians with some regiments of light cavalry who, dashing bravely over the bridge, crossed the ravine; but, a.s.sailed by gunfire and grapeshot, our squadrons were driven back in disorder into the gulch, from which they emerged with much difficulty. The Emperor, seeing the light cavalry repulsed, replaced them by a division of Dragoons, whose attack, received in the same manner as before, had a similar outcome.

The Emperor then ordered the advance of General D'Hautpoul's terrible Cuira.s.siers, who crossed the bridge under a hail of grapeshot and fell on the Russian line with such ferocity that they literally flattened it. There then ensued the most frightful butchery; the Cuira.s.siers, enraged at the losses suffered by their comrades of the Hussars and Dragoons, almost entirely exterminated the eight Russian battalions, All were either killed or captured! The battlefield was a scene of horror. Never has a cavalry charge had such a devastating result. The Emperor demonstrated his satisfaction with the Cuira.s.siers by embracing their general before the whole division.

General D'Hautpoul exclaimed, "To show myself worthy of this honour, I shall dedicate my life to your majesty." He kept his word, for the next day he was killed on the battlefield of Eylau. What an epoch!

And what men!

The enemy army which, from a plateau beyond Landsberg, had witnessed the destruction of its rearguard, retired promptly towards Eylau, and we took possession of Landsberg. On the 7th February the Russian commander-in-chief, Benningsen, having decided to give battle, concentrated his army around Eylau, mainly in positions between us and the town. Murat's cavalry and Soult's infantry took these positions after fierce fighting, for the Russians held tenaciously to Ziegelhof, which dominates Eylau, as they wanted to make it the centre point of their line for the battle on the following day; but they were forced to retreat from the town. Night seemed to have put an end to this fighting, the prelude to the coming general action, when a fusillade of shots rang out in the streets of Eylau.

I know that military authors who have written about this campaign, claim that Napoleon ordered an attack because he did not want the town to remain in Russian hands; but I am sure that they are mistaken, and for the following reason:-

When the head of Marshal Augereau's column, coming down the road from Landsberg, drew near to Ziegelhof, the marshal climbed onto the plateau where the Emperor was already stationed, and I actually heard Napoleon say to Augereau, "It has been suggested to me that we should take Eylau this evening; but, apart from the fact that I don't like fighting at night, I do not wish to push my centre too far forward before the arrival of Davout on my right flank and Ney on my left. So I am going to wait for them until tomorrow on this plateau which, furbished with artillery, will provide a fine position for our infantry; then, when Davout and Ney are in the line, we shall march, together, against the enemy." Having said this, the Emperor ordered his bivouac to be set up at the foot of the Ziegelhof, and his guard to encamp around it.

But while Napoleon was explaining his plans to Marshal Augereau, who greatly approved of his prudence, the staff of the imperial palace, coming from Landsberg with their baggage and servants, arrived at our outposts, which were at the gates of Eylau, without anyone telling them to stop at Ziegelhof. These employees, used to seeing the imperial quarters very well guarded, and not having been warned that they were almost on top of the Russians, were interested only in selecting a good lodging for their master, and they set themselves up in the post-house, where they unpacked their equipment, stabled their horses, and began to cook. In the midst of these preparations they were attacked by a Russian patrol and would have been captured had it not been for the intervention of the guard which always accompanied the Emperor's baggage. At the sound of this outbreak of firing, the troops who were in position at the gates of the town ran to the rescue of Napoleon's equipment, which was already being pillaged by the Russian soldiers. The Russian generals, thinking that the French were attempting to seize Eylau, sent reinforcements to their side, and so a sanguinary battle was fought in the streets of the town, which ended up in our hands.

Although this attack had not been ordered by the Emperor, he saw no reason not to profit by it, and he set himself up in the Eylau post-house. The Guard and Soult's troops occupied the town which was surrounded by Murat's cavalry. Augereau's troops were positioned in Zehsen, a little hamlet in which we hoped to find some provisions, but the Russians had taken everything with them as they withdrew, so that our unhappy regiment, which had received no rations for eight days, had to make do with some potatoes and water. The equipment of the staff having been left at Landsberg, our supper was not as good as that of the soldiers, for we had no potatoes. Eventually, on the morning of the 8th, when we were about to mount our horses, one of the marshal's servants brought him some bread, and he, always generous, shared it out amongst his aides-de-camp. After this frugal meal, which for several of us was to be our last, the corps moved to the post to which it had been a.s.signed by the Emperor.

In accordance with the plan which I explained when I started these memoirs, I shall not weary you with too detailed a description of the various phases of this terrible battle of Eylau, but will limit myself to the princ.i.p.al events.

On the morning of the 8th, the position of the two armies was as follows. The Russians had their left at Serpalten, their centre in front of Auklapen and their right at Schmoditten. They were awaiting the arrival of eight thousand Prussians, who were expected to go to Althoff where they would form the extreme right wing. The enemy's front line was protected by five hundred artillery pieces, of which a third at least were of large calibre. The French situation was much less favourable, since their two wings had not yet arrived. The Emperor had, at the start of the action, only a part of the force with which he had expected to do battle. Marshal Soult's corps was placed on the right and left of Eylau, the Guard in the town itself, and Augereau's corps between Eylau and Rothenen, opposite Serpalten. The enemy formed almost a semicircle about us, and the two armies occupied a terrain in which there were numerous ponds covered by snow, which neither side could see.

Neither Marshal Davout, who should have been on our right, towards Molwitten, nor Marshal Ney, who should have been on our left around Althoff, had yet appeared, when at daybreak, about eight in the morning, the Russians began the attack by a violent cannonade to which our gunners, though fewer in numbers, replied. Though fewer, they had the advantage, however of being much better trained than the Russians, and also of directing their fire at ma.s.ses of men who had no cover, while the Russian cannon-b.a.l.l.s mainly hit the walls of Eylau and Rothenen. Soon a strong enemy column advanced with the intention of capturing the town; it was vigourously repelled by the Guard and Marshal Soult's troops. At this moment, the Emperor heard, with much pleasure, that from the top of the church tower could be seen Davout's men arriving via Molwitten and marching towards Serpalten, from where they expelled the Russians and drove them back to Klein-Sausgarten.

The Russian commander, Benningsen, seeing his left beaten and his rear menaced by the audacious Davout, resolved to crush him, and directed the greater part of his force against him. It was then that Napoleon, with the object of preventing this movement by creating a diversion against the enemy centre, ordered Augereau to attack, although he foresaw the difficulties of this operation.

There are on the field of battle, circ.u.mstances when one must sacrifice some troops in order to preserve the great majority and ensure victory. General Corbineau, the Emperor's aide-de-camp, was killed by a cannon shot near to us while bringing to Marshal Augereau the order to advance. The marshal pa.s.sed between Eylau and Rothenen and led his two divisions boldly against the enemy centre, and already the 14th Line regiment who made up our advance guard had seized the position which the Emperor had ordered to be taken and held at all costs, when the guns which formed a semi-circle about Augereau hurled out a storm of ball and grape-shot of hitherto unprecedented ferocity. In an instant, our two divisions were pulverised under this rain of iron! General Desjardins was killed and General Heudelet gravely wounded; however, they stood firm until the corps having been almost entirely destroyed, the remnants were compelled to retire to the cemetery of Eylau, with the exception of the 14th, who almost entirely surrounded by the enemy, remained on the little hill which they had occupied. The situation was made even worse by a gale of wind which blew a heavy snowfall into our faces, and reduced visibility to about fifteen paces, so that several French batteries opened fire on us, as well as the Russians. Marshal Augereau was wounded by a bullet.

The devotion of 7th Corps, however, produced a good result, for, relieved by our attack, Marshal Davout was able not only to maintain his position, but to take Klein-Sausgarten and even push his advance-guard as far as Kuschitten, in the enemy's rear. Then, in an attempt to deliver a knock-out blow, Napoleon despatched, between Eylau and Rothenen, the squadrons commanded by Murat. This terrifying ma.s.s fell on the Russian centre, overwhelming them, cutting them down with their sabres and throwing them into the greatest confusion. The valiant General D'Hautpoul was killed at the head of his Cuira.s.siers, as was General Dahlmann, who had succeeded General Morland in the command of the Cha.s.seurs of the Guard. The success of our cavalry allowed us to carry the day. Eight thousand Prussians, escaped from pursuit by Marshal Ney, and arriving at Althoff, tried to mount a new attack by advancing, one does not quite know why, on Kuschitten instead of Eylau, but Davout drove them off, and the arrival of Ney's corps at Schmoditten towards the end of the day, made Benningsen fear that his line of communication would be cut, and so he ordered a retreat in the direction of Konigsberg, leaving the French masters of the horrible battlefield covered with dead and dying. Since the invention of gunpowder one has not seen such a terrible effect, for in relation to the numbers engaged at Eylau, in comparison to all the battles, ancient or modern, the proportion of losses was highest. The Russians had twenty-five thousand casualties, and although the figure for French losses has been given as ten thousand, it is my belief that it was at least twenty thousand. A total of forty-five thousand men, of whom more than half died!

Augereau's corps was almost entirely destroyed. Out of fifteen thousand combatants under arms at the beginning of the action, there remained by evening only three thousand, under the command of Lieutenant colonel Ma.s.sy: the marshal, all the generals and all the colonels had been either killed or wounded.

It is difficult to understand why Benningsen, knowing that Davout and Ney had not yet arrived, did not take advantage of their absence to attack Eylau at daybreak with the numerous troops of the centre of his army, instead of using precious time in bombarding us; for his superior strength would certainly have made him master of the town before the arrival of Davout, and the Emperor would then have regretted having moved so far forward instead of consolidating his position on the plateau of Ziegelhof and awaiting the arrival of his flank forces, as he had intended the evening before.

The day after the battle the Emperor followed the Russians to the gates of Konigsberg; but that town was fortified and it was thought unwise to attack it with troops weakened by a sanguinary battle, and what is more, almost all the Russian army was in Konigsberg and the surrounding country.

Napoleon spent several days at Eylau, partly to collect the wounded and partly to reorganise his forces. The survivors of Augereau's corps were spread amongst other units and the marshal was given leave to return to France for the treatment of his wound. The Emperor, seeing that the bulk of the Russian army was now at a distance, put his troops into billets in the towns and villages in front of the lower Vistula. There was no interesting event during the rest of the winter, except the taking of Danzig by our troops.

Hostilities in the open country would not begin again until the month of june, as we shall see later.

Chap. 34.

I did not want to interrupt the story of the battle of Eylau to tell you what happened to me in this terrible conflict; a sad tale, to understand which we must go back to the autumn of 1805 when the officers of the Grande Armee were equipping themselves in preparation for the Battle of Austerlitz. I had two good horses and was looking for a third of a better quality, a charger. This was something difficult to find, for although horses were infinitely cheaper than they are today, they were still expensive, and I did not have much money; but I had a piece of very good luck.

I ran into a German scholar, named M. d'Aister, whom I had known when he was teaching at Soreze; he was now tutor to the children of a rich Swiss banker, M. Scherer, who lived in Paris and was an a.s.sociate of M. Finguerlin, who was a very wealthy man who kept up great state, and had a stable of many horses, amongst which was a charming mare called Lisette, an excellent animal from Mecklemberg, good-looking, swift as a stag, and so well schooled that a child could ride her.

But this mare had a dreadful and fortunately rare vice: she bit like a bulldog, and attacked furiously anyone who displeased her, which decided M. Finguerlin to sell her. She was bought by Mme. de Lauriston, whose husband, an aide-de-camp to the Emperor, had written to her to ask her to buy him a charger.

M. Finguerlin, when he sold the mare, had omitted to mention her behaviour, and on the evening of her purchase, a groom, whom she had torn open, was found lying at her feet. Mme. de Lauriston was justly alarmed and demanded cancellation of the sale. Not only was this done, but the police, in order to prevent another such accident, required that a notice be fixed to Lisette's loose-box informing any potential buyer of her ferocity, and that any sale would be null and void unless the buyer declared in writing that he was aware of this notice.

As you may imagine, with such a recommendation, the mare was very difficult to sell; M. d'Aister told me that her owner was prepared to let her go for whatever was offered. I offered a thousand francs and M. Finguerlin handed Lisette over to me, although she had cost five thousand. For several months she gave me a great deal of trouble; it took four or five men to saddle her, and she could not be bridled without being blindfolded and having all four legs tied; but once on her back one found her a matchless ride.

However, since during the time I had owned her she had bitten several people, including me, I was thinking of getting rid of her, when, having taken into my service a man called Francis Woirland, who was scared of nothing, he, before approaching Lisette, about whose bad character I had warned him, armed himself with a very hot leg of roast mutton, and when she attempted to bite him, he offered this to her, which she seized in her teeth; but having burned her mouth and her tongue, the mare gave a cry and dropped the gigot, and from that moment she submitted herself to Woirland, whom she no longer dared to bite. I tried the same trick and achieved the same result. Lisette, as docile as a dog, allowed herself to be handled by myself and my servant; she even became a little more tractable with the grooms whom she saw every day, but woe betide any stranger pa.s.sing too close to her. I could give many examples of her ferocity, but I shall limit myself to one.

While Marshal Augereau was staying at the chateau of Bellevue, near Berlin, the servants, having noticed that while they were at diner, someone was coming to steal the sacks of oats from the stable, asked Woirland to leave Lisette loose near the door. The thief arrived, slipped into the stable and was already carrying off one of the sacks when the mare grabbed him by the neck, dragged him into the yard and broke two of his ribs by trampling on him. People came running to the cries of the terrified thief, whom Lisette was unwilling to abandon until my servant and I persuaded her, for in her rage she would have savaged anyone else. The wickedness of this animal had got worse since the officer of the Saxon Hussars had treacherously stabbed her in the shoulder on the battlefield of Jena.

It was this mare that I was riding at the time when the remains of Marshal Augereau's corps, shattered by a hail of cannon and grape shot, were attempting to re-form in the area of the cemetery. You will recall that the 14th Line regiment had stayed alone on the little hill, which it might leave only if ordered to do so by the Emperor. The snow having stopped for a moment, one could see this gallant regiment almost completely surrounded by the enemy, waving its Eagle aloft to show that it still stood fast and needed help.

The Emperor, touched by the devotion to duty of these brave men, decided to attempt their rescue; he told Marshal Augereau to send an officer with orders to them to quit the hillock, form a small square and withdraw towards us; while a brigade of cavalry would go to meet them and second their efforts.

This was before the great charge made by Murat and his cavalry, and it was almost impossible to carry out the Emperor's command because a swarm of Cossacks separated us from the 14th. It was clear that any officer sent towards the unfortunate regiment would be killed or captured before he got there. Nevertheless, an order is an order; and the marshal had to obey.

It was the custom, in the imperial army, for the aides to line up a few paces from their general, and the one in front went off first; when he had completed his mission, he joined the back of the queue, so that as each took his turn to carry orders, the dangers were shared equally. A brave captain of engineers, named Froissart, who, although not an aide-de-camp, was attached to the marshal's staff, was nearest to him and was sent off to carry the order to the 14th.

He left at the gallop; we lost sight of him in the midst of the Cossacks and never saw him again, nor did we know what became of him.

The marshal, seeing that the 14th did not budge, sent another officer, named David. He suffered the same fate as Froissart, and we heard no more of him. It is likely that they were both killed, and having been stripped of their clothing their bodies were not recognisable among the many dead who covered the ground. For the third time the marshal called out "An officer to take orders "!...It was my turn.

When he saw before him the son of his old friend, and, I think I may dare to say, his favourite aide-de-camp, the good marshal's face fell and his eyes filled with tears, for he could not disguise from himself that he was sending me to an almost certain death; but the Emperor's order had to be obeyed; I was a soldier; no one else could take my place, I would not have allowed something so dishonourable.

So I took off! Now, while prepared to sacrifice my life, I thought it my duty to take every precaution which might save it. I had noticed that the two officers who had gone before me had left with drawn sabres, which made me think that they intended to defend themselves against the Cossacks who would attack them during the ride. This intention was in my opinion ill-advised, for they would have been forced to stop and fight a mult.i.tude of enemies who, in the end, had overwhelmed them. I adopted a different approach, and leaving my sabre in its scabbard, I thought of myself as a rider who, to win the prize in a race, goes as fast as possible by the shortest route towards the winning post without taking any notice of what is to right or left of him during his pa.s.sage. Now, my winning post being the hillock occupied by the 14th, I resolved to get there without paying any attention to the Cossacks, whom I blotted out of my thoughts.

This system worked perfectly. Lisette, light as a swallow, and flying rather than galloping, rushed through s.p.a.ce, leaping over the piled up bodies of men and horses, over ditches and the broken mountings of guns, as well as the half-extinguished bivouac fires.

Thousands of Cossacks were scattered about the plain. The first ones to see me behaved like hunters who, having raised a hare, mark its presence by shouts of "Yours! Yours!" But none of them tried to stop me, firstly because I was going so fast, and also perhaps because each one thought I would be caught by his comrades who were further on. In this way I escaped from them all and arrived at the 14th without either I or my excellent mare having suffered a scratch.

I found the 14th formed in a square on top of the hillock; but the slope of the ground was so gentle that the enemy cavalry had been able to carry out a number of charges, which had been vigourously repelled, so that they were surrounded by heap of the dead bodies of horses and Russian Dragoons, which formed a sort of rampart, and now made the position almost inaccessible to cavalry; for even with the aid of our infantrymen, I had great difficulty in getting over this b.l.o.o.d.y and frightful defence work, but at last I was inside the square.

Since the death of Colonel Savary, killed during the crossing of the Ukra, the 14th had been commanded by a battalion commander; when I gave this officer the order which I carried, for him to leave his position and try to rejoin the army corps, he replied that the enemy artillery which had been firing at them for an hour had occasioned such heavy losses that the handful of soldiers which he had left would inevitably be exterminated if they went down onto the level ground; and anyway there was no time to prepare for the execution of this movement, since a Russian column, coming to attack, was now close to us. "I can see no way of saving the regiment," said the battalion commander. "Go back to the Emperor and say good-bye to him from the 14th; and take back the Eagle which we can no longer defend."

The Eagles of the infantry were very heavy, and their weight was increased by the long thick pole of oak on which they were mounted.