The Memoirs of General Baron de Marbot Part 18

I was bending forward and attempting to detach the Eagle from its pole, when one of the many bullets which the Russians were firing at us went through the back part of my hat, very close to my head. The shock was made worse by the fact that the hat was held on by a strong leather strap which went under my chin, and so offered more resistance to the blow. I was partially stunned by this, and found myself unable to move.

However the column of Russian infantry was now climbing the hillock; they were Grenadiers, whose headgear, garnished with metal, looked like mitres. These men, full of liquor, flung themselves on the feeble remnants of the 14th, who defended themselves bravely with their bayonets, and even when the square was broken, formed themselves into little groups and continued for a long time the unequal struggle. In my confused state, I was unable to react in any way; I was attacked by a drunken Russian soldier, who thrust his bayonet into my left arm, and then, aiming another blow at me, lost his balance and missing his mark, he slashed Lisette's haunch.

The pain of this injury aroused her ferocious instincts, she grabbed the soldier with her teeth and tore away the greater part of his face,then, kicking and biting, she forced her way through the melee and taking the path by which we had come, she went off at the gallop in the direction of the Eylau cemetery while, thanks to the Hussar's saddle in which I was seated, I remained on her back.

As we approached Eylau a new danger arose. The snow had started to fall again and in the poor visibility a battalion of the Guard took me for a Russian and opened fire on me, but although my cloak and my saddle were hit, both I and my mare were untouched. Lisette, continuing to gallop, went through the three lines of infantry like a gra.s.s-snake through a hedge, but this last burst of speed drained her resources, she was losing a lot of blood because one of the big veins in her haunch had been cut, she collapsed suddenly and fell, throwing me to the ground, where I was rendered unconscious.

I must have remained in this state for about four hours, and I was not aroused by the great charge of Murat's ninety squadrons of cavalry, which went past me and perhaps over me. When I came to, this is the dreadful position in which I found myself. I was completely naked except for my hat and my right boot. A soldier of the transport section, believing me to be dead, had despoiled me, as was customary, and in an attempt to remove my boot, was dragging at my leg, with one foot on my stomach. I was able to raise the upper part of my body and to spit out some clots of blood, my face, shoulders and chest were badly bruised, and blood from my wounded arm reddened the rest of my body. I gazed around with haggard eyes, and must have been a horrible spectacle. The transport driver made off with my possessions before I could summon my wits and address a word to him. I was too dazed and weak to move, and unable to call for help. The cold was increasing and I had little hope of surviving without some form of miracle, and something like a miracle took place.

Marshal Augereau had a valet de chambre, named Pierre Dannel, a very intelligent boy, loyal, but inclined to be cheeky; and it so happened that while we were at Houssaye, Dannel, having spoken back to his master, had been given his notice. Desolated, Dannel begged me to intercede for him, which I did with so much zeal that he was reinstated in the marshal's good graces; since when the valet had been devoted to me. Dannel had taken it on himself to come from Landsberg, on the day of the battle, to bring some victuals to his master, which he had put in a very light wagon, able to go anywhere, and containing all the things that the marshal used most frequently.

This little wagon was driven by a soldier who had served in the same transport unit as the man who had stripped me. This fellow, carrying my effects, was pa.s.sing the wagon which was standing at the Eylau cemetery when, recognising his old friend, he went up to him to show him the lovely booty he had taken from a dead man.

Now, while we were in cantonments by the Vistula, the marshal having told Dannel to go to Warsaw to get some provisions, I asked him to take my pelisse and have the black astrakhan with which it was trimmed, removed and replaced by grey; a style newly adopted by the aides-de-camp of Prince Berthier, who set the fashion in the army. I was still the only one of Marshal Augereau's officers who had grey astrakhan.

Dannel, who was present when the transport driver displayed his booty, easily recognised my pelisse, which made him look more closely at the other belongings of the alleged dead man, amongst which he saw my watch, marked with my father's initials, for it had been his. The valet de chambre had no doubt that I had been killed, but mourning my death, he wished to see me for the last time, and having been led there by the transport driver, he found me alive!

This good fellow, to whom I owe my life, was overjoyed. He hurried to fetch my own servant and some orderlies, who carried me into a barn where they rubbed me down with rum, while they sent for Dr. Raymond. When he at last arrived, he dressed the wound in my arm and declared that the blood which I had lost would save me.

Soon I was surrounded by my comrades including my brother. A reward was given to the transport rider who had taken my clothes, which he handed over with good grace; but as they were soaked with blood and water, Marshal Augereau had me wrapped up in clothes of his own.

The Emperor had given permission for Augereau to return to Landsberg, but his wound made it impossible for him to ride a horse; so his aides-de-camp got hold of a sledge on which they mounted the body of a carriage. The marshal, who had decided not to abandon me, had me strapped in beside him, for I was too weak to sit upright.

Before I was picked up from the battlefield, I had seen my poor Lisette near to me. Her wound had stopped bleeding and she was back on her feet, eating some straw which had been used by soldiers in their bivouacs the previous night. My servant, who was very fond of Lisette, returned to look for her; he cut strips of clothing from a dead soldier and dressed the wound on her haunch, and got her fit enough to walk to Landsberg.

The commandant of the little garrison of the town, had had the good sense to prepare quarters for the wounded. The officers of the staff were put into a large and comfortable inn, so that instead of spending the night lying naked in the snow, I was tucked into a good bed and being looked after by my brother, my companions and the worthy Dr. Raymond. The doctor had to cut the boot which the soldier had tried to pull off, and even so, he had difficulty in getting it off because my foot had swollen so much. You will see, later that this could have cost me my leg, and perhaps even my life.

We stayed in Landsberg for thirty-six hours. The rest and the care given me restored my ability to move, and when, on the second day after the battle, Marshal Augereau set off for Warsaw, I was able, though still very weak, to travel on the sledge. The journey took eight days, because we moved only in short stages; I was recovering my strength little by little, but I was aware of an icy cold in my right foot.

On our arrival at Warsaw, I was put in a large house which had been reserved for the marshal, which suited me very well, as I was unable to get out of bed. The wound of my arm was healing, the bruising of my upper body was dispersing, and my skin was resuming its normal colour, however the doctor did not know why I could not get up, and hearing me complain about my leg, he decided to have a look at it, and what do you suppose he found? My foot had become gangrenous! An accident which had occurred many years ago was the cause of this. While I was at Soreze, my right foot had been pierced by the foil of a fencing opponent, which had lost its b.u.t.ton. It seems that this injury had made my foot more sensitive to cold, and while I was lying on the snow it had become frostbitten, and not having been treated in time, gangrene had set in at the site of the old fencing injury, the area was covered by a scar the size of a five franc piece. The doctor looked with alarm at my foot, then, taking a bistoury, and having me held down by four servants, he picked off the scab and dug into my foot to remove the dead flesh, just as one would cut out the rotten part of an apple.

I suffered greatly, at first without complaining, though it was a different matter when the bistoury, having reached live tissue, exposed the muscles and bones, which one could see. The doctor then stood on a chair and having soaked a sponge in warm sweetened wine, he allowed it to fall, drop by drop into the hole he had made in my foot. The pain was intolerable! Nevertheless I had to endure for a week this fearful torture, but my leg was saved.

Today, when one is so prodigal with decorations and promotions, an officer who ran the risks which I had run in reaching the 14th regiment, would certainly be rewarded; but under the Empire this sort of devotion to duty was regarded as so normal that I was given no medal and never thought of asking for one.

A long rest having been judged necessary for the cure of Marshal Augereau's wound, the Emperor instructed him to go to France for treatment, and brought Marshal Ma.s.sena from Italy; to whom my brother, Bro and several of my friends were appointed. Marshal Augereau took me with him, along with his secretary and Dr.Raymond.

I had to be lifted in and out of the carriage, but otherwise I felt my health improve the further we got away from those frozen wastes to a more friendly climate. My mare spent the winter in the stables of M. de Launay, the administrator of army forage supplies.

The marshal went by way of Rawa to Silesia. As long as we were in dreadful Poland, where there are no metalled roads, it took twelve and sometimes sixteen horses to drag the coach out of the bogs and swamps through which we travelled. We went always at walking pace and it was not until we reached Germany that we found ourselves in a civilised country with proper roads. We stopped at Dresden, and spent ten or twelve days at Frankfurt-on-Main, from where we had marched the previous October to attack Prussia.

We finally reached Paris about the 15th of March. I could walk with much difficulty, and had my arm in a sling, and I still felt the effects of what I had been through, but the pleasure of seeing my mother once more, and the care she devoted to me, combined with the gentle influence of the returning spring, effected my cure.

Chap. 35.

I spent the end of March, all of April, and the first week of May in Paris. It was during this time that I got to know the Desbrieres, a family of which my marriage was soon to make me a member. I had recovered my health, and I realised that I could not stay any longer in Paris. Marshal Augereau sent me to Marshal Lannes who took me willingly onto his staff.

The Emperor, in order to keep an eye on any moves which the enemy might be tempted to make during the winter, had settled himself in the middle of the cantonments of his troops, first at Osterode and then at the chateau of Finkenstein, from where, while planning a new campaign, he governed France and directed his ministers, who, every week, sent him their reports. The portfolios holding the various doc.u.ments furnished by each ministry were collected every Wednesday by M. Denniee the elder, under-secretary of state for war, who sent them off on Thursdays in the charge of a junior official whose duty it was to deliver them into the hands of the Emperor. But this system worked very badly because most of these officials had never been out of France. They did not know a word of German, nor did they understand the currency or the regulations regarding posting in foreign countries, so they did not know how to manage matters once they had crossed the Rhine. In addition, these gentlemen, being unused to fatigue, soon found themselves overcome by that of a journey of more than three hundred leagues, which lasted continuously for ten days and ten nights. One of them was so incompetent as to allow his despatches to be stolen. Napoleon was so angry at this mishap that he sent a courier to Paris to tell M. Denniee not to give the portfolios in future to officials except those who knew Germany, and who, being able to support fatigue and privation, could carry out their duties more efficiently.

M. Denniee was having great difficulty in finding anyone to fill the post, when I turned up with a letter ordering me to report to Marshal Lannes. Delighted to have found someone to take the next lot of despatches, he warned me to be ready to leave on the coming Thursday, and gave me five thousand francs for expenses and the purchase of a carriage, which suited me very well, as I did not have much money to get me back to the army in the depths of Poland.

We left Paris about the 10th of May. Both my servant and I were armed, and if one of us left the coach the other remained on guard.

We knew enough German to keep the postilions up to the mark, and as I was in uniform, they obeyed me with more alacrity than they would a civilian official. So that instead of taking the usual nine and a half or ten days over the journey, we made it in eight and a half.

The Emperor was delighted to have his despatches twenty-four hours earlier than expected, and after praising the keenness which had led me to ask to return to duty in spite of my recent wounds, he added that as I had been so efficient a courier, I could leave for Paris that same night to take back some other portfolios; a task which would not prevent me from taking part in the campaign, which could not restart before the beginning of June.

Although I had spent nothing like the five thousand francs which M. Denniee had given me, the marshal of the palace gave me the same sum to return to Paris, which I did as quickly as possible. I stayed no more than twenty-four hours in the capital, and left once more for Poland; the minister again gave me five thousand francs for this third journey; it was far more than was necessary, but that was how Napoleon wanted it. It is true that these trips were very tiring and very boring, even though the weather was fine. I was on the road day and night for nearly a month in the sole company of my servant.

I reported to the Emperor at Finkenstein, and was afraid that I might have to continue as postman until fighting broke out, when fortunately some replacements were found and the Emperor authorised me to go to Marshal Lannes, to whom I reported at Marienberg on the 25th May. He had with him Colonel Sicard, Augereau's aide-de-camp, who had been kind enough to take charge of my horses. It was with much pleasure that I saw once more my mare Lisette, who was fit enough for more service.

The fortress of Danzig, besieged by the French during the winter, had fallen into their hands. The return of the good weather soon saw campaigning recommence. The Russians attacked our cantonments on the 5th of June, and were sharply repulsed at every point. On the 10th there was a fierce encounter at Heilsberg which some historians describe as a battle. The enemy were once more defeated. I shall not go into any detail about this affair, since Marshal Lannes' corps took very little part in it, not having arrived until nightfall. We did, however, come under some heavy fire and Colonel Sicard was mortally wounded. He had already been wounded at Eylau, and although scarcely recovered from his injuries, had returned to take part in the renewed fighting. Before he died, the good colonel requested me to say his farewell to Marshal Augereau, and gave me a letter for his wife. I was very much upset by this painful scene.

The army now being in pursuit of the Russians, we pa.s.sed through Eylau. The fields which we had left three months previously covered with snow and dead bodies, were now overspread by a delightful carpet of green, bedecked with flowers. What a contrast!

How many soldiers lay beneath those verdant meadows? I went and sat at the place where I had fallen and been despoiled, and where I also would have died, had not a truly providential combination of circ.u.mstances come to my aid. Marshal Lannes wanted to see the hillock which the 14th had so valiantly defended. I took him there.

Since the time of the battle, the enemy had been in occupation of the place; however, we found, still intact, the monument which all the corps of the French army had erected to the memory of their dead comrades of the 14th, thirty-six of whose officers had been buried in the same grave. This respect for the dead reflected honour on the Russians. I remained for a few moments on the spot where I had been hit by the bullet and wounded by the bayonet, and thought of the brave men who lay in the dust, and whose fate I had so nearly shared.

The Russians, having been defeated on the 10th of June at Heilsberg, retreated hastily and got a day ahead of the French who, by the evening of the 13th, were concentrated beyond Eylau, on the left bank of the Alle. The Russians occupied Bartenstein on the right bank of this river, which the two armies now descended on opposite sides.

Benningsen, whose stores of food and ammunition were in Konigsberg, where the Prussian corps was stationed, wanted to reach this town before the arrival of the French, but to do so he had to cross over onto the left bank of the Alle, where there were the French troops. The Russian commander hoped to reach Friedland sufficiently far ahead of the French to be able to cross the river before they could oppose him. The same reasons which made Benningsen wish to hold on to Konigsberg, made Napoleon wish to capture it. He had for several days constantly manoeuvred to out-flank the Russian left, and keep them away from the place, in the direction of which he had sent Murat, Soult and Davout to oppose the Russians if they arrived before us.

The Emperor, however, did not stick to this scheme, and foreseeing that the Russians would attempt to cross the Alle at Friedland, he aimed to occupy the town before they did, and on the night of the 13th-14th June, he despatched towards it the corps of Marshal Lannes and Mortier, and three divisions of cavalry. The rest of the army was to follow.

Marshal Lannes, who was in the van, with the Oudinot Grenadiers and a brigade of cavalry, having arrived at Posthenen, a league from Friedland, sent the 9th Hussars to reconnoitre the latter town. They were repulsed with losses, and daybreak revealed a large part of the Russian army ma.s.sed on the opposite bank of the Alle on the high ground between Allenau and Friedland. They had begun to cross the old town bridge, beside which they had constructed two new ones.

The aim of the two armies was very easily understood. The Russians wanted to cross the Alle to get to Konigsberg, and the French wanted to stop them and drive them back across the river, which had very steep banks. The only crossing point was at Friedland. The Russians had difficulty in deploying from Friedland onto the open ground of the left bank, owing to the fact that the way out of the town was much restricted by a large lake, and by a stream called the Mill Stream, which ran in a very steep-sided ravine. To protect their crossing, the Russians had placed two strong batteries of guns on the right bank, which could cover the town and part of the land between Posthenen and Heinrichsdorf.

The Emperor was still at Eylau: the various corps marching towards Friedland were still several leagues away, when Marshal Lannes, having marched all night, arrived before the town. The marshal would have liked to attack the enemy immediately; but already they had thirty thousand men drawn up on the level ground before Friedland, and their lines, the right of which was opposite Heinrichsdorf, the centre at the mill stream, and the left at the village of Sortlack, were being endlessly reinforced; while Marshal Lannes had no more than ten thousand men; however, he deployed them skillfully in the village of Posthenen and the woods of Sortlack, from where he threatened the Russian's left flank, while with two divisions of cavalry he tried to stop their advance toward Heinrichsdorf, which lay on the route from Friedland to Konigsberg. There was a brisk exchange of fire before Mortier's corps arrived. Mortier, to dispute with the Russians the road to Konigsberg, while waiting for fresh reinforcements, occupied Heinrichsdorf and the area between this village and Posthenen. However, it was not possible that Lannes and Mortier with twenty-five thousand men could resist the seventy thousand Russians who would soon face them. The situation was becoming highly critical. Marshal Lannes sent a succession of officers to warn the Emperor to hasten the arrival of the army corps which he knew were coming up behind him. Mounted on my swift Lisette, I was the first to go. I met the Emperor as he was leaving Eylau; he was beaming with pleasure! He called me to his side, and as we galloped along, I had to explain to him what had happened before I left the battle. When I had finished my recital, the Emperor said to me, smiling, "Have you a good memory?" "Pa.s.sable, Sir," I replied.

"Well what anniversary is this, the 14th of June?" "Marengo" I said "Yes! Yes! The anniversary of Marengo," said the Emperor, "and I shall beat the Russians as I beat the Austrians!"

Napoleon was so convinced about this, that as he went along the columns, where the men greeted him with many cheers, he said to them repeatedly "Today is a lucky day, it is the anniversary of Marengo!"

Chap. 36.

It was after eleven o'clock when Napoleon arrived on the battlefield, where several corps had already come to join Lannes and Mortier. The remainder, including the Guard, were arriving one by one. Napoleon readjusted the line: Ney was on the right, positioned in the wood at Sortlack; Lannes and Mortier formed the centre, between Posthenen and Heinrichsdorf; the left stretched out beyond this last village. The heat was overpowering. The Emperor gave the troops an hour's rest, after which, at the signal of a volley by twenty-five guns, a general attack would begin.

Marshal Ney's corps had the most difficult task, for they were to come out of their hiding place in the woods of Sortlack, fight their way into Friedland, which was filled with the main forces and reserves of the enemy, seize the bridges and thus cut off the Russian's way of retreat.

It is difficult to understand why Benningsen had placed his forces in front of the narrow exit from Friedland, and with their backs to the Alle with its steep banks, in the presence of the French who commanded the open country. The explanation given later by the Russian general was that having been a day ahead of Napoleon, he did not believe that the French troops could cover in twelve hours a distance which had taken his men twenty-four hours, and he had thought that Lannes' corps was an isolated advance-guard of the French army, which he could easily crush. When this illusion had been dissipated, it was too late to bring his army back to the other bank because the narrow defile at Friedland would have caused certain disaster, so he preferred to stand and fight.

At about one in the afternoon, the twenty-five guns at Posthenen, given the order by the Emperor, fired a volley, and battle was joined all along the line. At first our left and our centre moved very slowly to give the right, commanded by Ney, time to capture the town. The marshal, emerging from Sortlack wood, took the village of that name and advanced rapidly towards Friedland, sweeping aside everything in his path; but as they moved forward from the wood and the village of Sortlack to the first houses of Friedland, Ney's troops were exposed to the fire of the Russian batteries which, positioned behind the town on the heights of the opposite bank, caused them severe losses. This fire was made more dangerous by the fact that the gunners, separated from us by the river, could aim their guns in safety, knowing that our infantry could not attack them. This serious problem could have led to the failure of the attack on Friedland, but Napoleon overcame it by sending General Senarmont with fifty guns, which he placed on the left bank of the Alle, and subjected the Russian batteries to such heavy fire that they were soon silenced. As soon as the enemy fire had ceased, Marshal Ney resumed his advance, driving the Russians back into Friedland, and mingled in confusion with them, entered the streets of the unfortunate town, where the mortar bombs had started a huge fire.

A savage bayonet fight ensued in which the Russians, crammed together and scarcely able to move, suffered enormous losses! ... At last, in spite of their courage, they were compelled to retreat in disorder and seek refuge by crossing the bridges to the other bank; but General Senarmont had moved his guns into a position from which he could fire on the bridges, which he soon broke, after killing many of the Russians who were attempting to escape across them. All those who remained in Friedland were either killed, captured or drowned while trying to cross the river.

Up until this point, Napoleon had, so to speak, made his left and his centre mark time; he now moved them rapidly forward. General Gortschakoff, who commanded the centre and right wing of the enemy, attempted, bravely, to recapture the town, (which would have been of no use, because the bridges were down, although he did not know that). He charged at the head of his men into the burning Friedland; but driven out by Ney, who was occupying the town, and forced back into the open, he found himself confronting our centre, who drove him back to the Alle at Kloschenen. The Russians defended themselves heroically and refused to surrender although completely surrounded. Many of them were killed by our bayonets, the remainder rolled down the steep banks into the river, where a large number were drowned.

The extreme right of the enemy was composed mostly of cavalry who tried during the battle to capture or outflank the village of Heinrichsdorf; but driven off by our troops, they went back to the banks of the Alle, under the command of General Lambert, who, seeing that Friedland was in the hands of the French and that the Russian left and centre were defeated, gathered all he could of the regiments of the right wing and made off from the battlefield down the side of the Alle. Nightfall prevented the French from following, so his was the only body of Russian troops to escape the disaster.

Our victory was one of the most complete; we captured all the Russian guns; we did not take a many prisoners during the action, but a great many of the enemy were killed or wounded, amounting to more than twenty-six thousand; our losses were no more than three thousand dead and four or five thousand wounded. Of all the battles fought by the Emperor, this was the only one in which the number of his troops exceeded that of the enemy. The French strength was eighty thousand and the Russian's only seventy-five thousand. The remnants of the Russian army marched in disorder all night, and retired behind the River Pregal, having destroyed the bridges.

Marshals Soult, Davout and Murat had not been involved in the battle of Friedland, but their presence induced the Russians to abandon Konigsberg, which town our troops entered. We found there an immense store of all kinds of material.

I did not suffer any injury during the battle, though I ran into a number of dangers. You saw how I left Posthenen in the morning, on Marshal Lannes' orders, to go as quickly as possible to warm the Emperor that the Russians were crossing the Alle, and that a battle appeared imminent. Napoleon was at Eylau; I had therefore to make a journy of about six leagues to reach him, which would have presented no difficulty to my excellent mare if the road had been clear, but as it was congested by the troops of various units hurrying to the aid of Marshal Lannes at Friedland, there was no way in which I could gallop along it. I therefore went across country, which meant that Lisette, having had to jump hedges, fences and ditches, was already very tired when I met the Emperor, who was just leaving Eylau.