Whilst the campaign of 1809 had seriously
shaken the faith of the marshals and the higher ranks in the
infallibility of the emperor’s judgment, and the slaughter of the troops
at Aspern and Wagram had still further accentuated the opposition of the
French people to conscription, the result on the fighting discipline of
the army had, on the whole, been for good. The panics of Wagram had
taught men and officers alike a salutary lesson.
Aware of the growing feeling against war in France, Napoleon had
determined to make his allies not only bear the expenses of the coming
campaign, but find the men as well, and he was so far master of Europe
that of the 363,000 who on the 24th of June crossed the 
Niemen no less
than two-thirds were Germans, Austrians, Poles or Italians. But though
the battlefield discipline tf the men was better, the discipline in camp
and on the march was worse, for the troops were no longer eager to reach
the battlefield, and marched because they were compelled, not of their
own goodwill. The result was apparent in a sudden diminution in
mobility, and a general want of punctuality which in the event very
seriously influenced the course of the campaign. On the other hand, the
Russians, once their fatherland was invaded, became dominated by an ever
growing spirit of fanaticism, and they were by nature too obedient
to their natural leaders, and too well inured to the hardships of
campaigning, to lose their courage in a retreat.
The Strategic Deployment
By the middle of June 1812 the emperor
had assembled his army along the line of the Niemen. On the extreme
right stood the Austrian contingent under Schwarzenberg (34,000 men).
Next, centering about Warsaw, a group of three corps (19,000 men) under
the chief command of Napoleon’s brother Jerome. Then the main army under
Napoleon in person (220,000 men; with 80,000 more under the viceroy of
Italy on his right rear); and on the extreme left a flanking
corps, comprising the Prussian auxiliary corps and other Germans (in all 40,000 strong). The whole army was particularly strong in cavalry;
out of the 450,000, 80,000 belonged to that arm, and Napoleon, mindful
of the lessons of 1807, had issued the most minute and detailed orders
for the supply service in all its branches, and the forwarding of
reinforcements, no less than 100,000 men being destined for that purpose
in due course of time.
Information about the Russians was very indifferent; it was only
known that about 33,000 men lay grouped about Wolkowysk with Bagration; Barclay de Tolly with 40,000 about Vilna; and on the Austrian
frontier lay a small corps under Tormassov in process of formation,
while far away on the Turkish frontiers hostilities with the sultan
retained Tschitschagov with 50,000 more. Of the enemy’s plans Napoleon
knew nothing, but, in accordance with his usual practice, the position
he had selected met all immediate possible moves.
Opening of the Campaign
On the 24th of June the passage of the
Niemen began in torrid heat which lasted for a few days. The main army,
with the emperor in person, covered by Murat, and the cavalry, moved on
Vilna, whilst Jerome on his right rear at once threatened Bagration and
covered the emperor’s outer flank. From the very first, however, the
inherent weakness of the vast army, and the vicious choice of time for
the beginning of the advance, began to make itself felt. The crops being
still green, and nothing else available as forage for the horses, an
epidemic of colic broke out amongst them, and in ten days the mounted
arms had lost upwards of one-third of their strength; men died of
sunstroke in numbers, and serious straggling began. Still everything
pointed to the concentration of the Russians at Vilna, and Jerome, who
on the 5th of July had reached Grodno, was ordered to push on. But
Jerome proved quite inadequate to his position, listening to the
complaints of his subordinates as to want of supplies and even of pay;
he spent four whole days in absolute inertia, notwithstanding the
emperor’s reprimands. Meanwhile the Russians made good their
retreat, Barclay towards the entrenched camp of Drissa on the Dvina,
Bagration towards Mohilev.
The emperor’s first great coup thus failed. Jerome was
replaced by
Davout, and the army resumed its march, this time in the hope of
surrounding and overwhelming Barclay, whilst Davout dealt with
Bagration. The want of mobility, particularly in the cavalry, now began
to tell against the French. With horses only just recovering from an
epidemic, they proved quite unequal to the task of catching the
Cossacks, who swarmed round them in every direction, never accepting an
engagement but compelling a constant watchfulness for which nothing in
their previous experience had sufficiently prepared the French.
Before their advance, however, the Russian armies steadily retired,
Barclay from Vilna via Drissa to Vitebsk, Bagration from Wolkowysk to
Mohilev. Again arrangments were made for a Napoleonic battle; behind
Murat’s cavalry; came the “general advanced guard “ to attack and hold
the enemy, whilst the main body and Davout were held available to swing
in on his rear. Napoleon, however, failed to allow for the psychology
of his opponents, who, utterly indifferent to the sacrifice of life,
refused to be drawn into engagements to support an advance or to
extricate a rearguard, and steadily withdrew from every position when
the French gained touch with them.
Thus the maneuver again miscarried, and Napoleon
found himself in a far worse position, numerically and materially, than
at the outset of the campaign. Then he had stood with 420,000 men on a
front of 160m., now he had only 229,000 men on a front of 135; he had
missed three great opportunities of destroying his enemy in detail, and
in five weeks, during which time he had only traversed 200 m., he had
seen his troops reduced numerically at least one-third, and, worse
still, his army was now far from being the fighting machine it had been
at the outset.
Smolensk
Meanwhile the Russians had not lost a single gun and
the moral of their men had been improved by the result of the many minor
encounters with the enemy; further, the junction of Bagration and Barclay was now assured in the vicinity of
Smolensk. Towards this place the French advance was now resumed, and the
Russian generals at the head of a united force of 130,000 men marched forward
to meet them. Here, however, the inefficiency of the Russian
staff actually saved them from the disaster which must certainly have
overtaken them had they realized their intention of fighting the French.
The Russians marched in two columns, which lost touch of one another,
and as it was quite impossible for either to engage the French single
handed, they both retired again towards Smolensk, where with an
advanced guard in the town itself, which possessed an old fashioned brick
enceinte not to be breached by field artillery alone the two columns reunited and deployed for action behind the
unfordable Dnieper.
Murat and Ney as “general advanced guard” attacked the town in the
morning of the 16th of August, and whilst they fought the main body was
swung round to attack the Russian left and rear. The whole of the 17th
was required to complete the movement, and as soon as its purpose was
sufficiently revealed to the Russians the latter determined to retreat
under cover of night. Their maneuver was carried out with complete
success, and then began a series of rearguard actions and nocturnal retreats
which completely accomplished their purpose of wearing down the French
army. The Russian government, however, failed to see the matter in its
true light, and Marshal Kutusov was sent to the front to assume the
chief command. His intention was to occupy a strong position and fight
one general action for the possession of Moscow, and to this end he
selected the line of the Kalatscha where the stream intersects the great
Moscow road.
Borodino
Here he was overtaken by Murat and Ney, but the French
columns had straggled so badly that four whole days elapsed before the
emperor was able to concentrate his army for battle and then could only
oppose 1 28,000 men to the Russians’ 110,000. About 6AM. the battle
began, but Napoleon was suffering from one of those attacks of illness
and depression which henceforth became such an important factor in his
fate. Till about midday he followed the course of the action with his
usual alertness; then he appears to have been overcome by a kind of stupor and allowed his marshals to fight by
themselves. There
was no final decisive effort as at Wagram and the Guard was not even
called on to move. Ultimately the sun went down on an undecided field on
which 25,000 French and 38,000 Russians had fallen, but the moral
reaction on the former was far greater than on the latter.
Moscow
Kutusov continued his retreat, and Mural with his now
exhausted horsemen followed as best he might, Sebastiani, commanding the
advanced guard, overtook the Russians in the act of evacuating Moscow,
and agreed with the latter to observe a seven hours armistice to allow
the Russians to clear the town, for experience had shown the French that
street fighting in wooden Russian townships always meant fire and the
consequent destruction of much needed shelter and provisions, Towards
nightfall Napoleon reached the scene, and the Russians being now clear
the troops began to enter, but already fires were observed in the
farther part of the city. Napoleon passed the night in a house in the
western suburb and next morning rode to the Kremlin, the troops moving
to the quarters assigned to them, but in the afternoon a great fire
began and, continuing for two days, drove the French out into the
country again.
The emperor was now in the direst perplexity. Kutusov was hovering on
the outskirts of the city, his main body at Kaluga, some marches to the
SW., where he was in full communication with the richest portion of the
empire; and now news arrived that St. Cyr, who had relieved Macdonald on
his extreme left, had only 17,000 men left under arms against upwards of
40,000 Russians under Witgenstein; and to the south Tschitschagov’s
army, being no longer detained on the Turkish frontier, peace having
been made, was marching toward Tormassov about Brest-Litewski with
forces which would bring the total of the two well over 100,000 men.
Meanwhile Schwarzenberg’s force opposing these had dwindled to a bare
30,000.
The French army was thus disposed almost in an equilateral triangle
with sides of about 570 m., with 95,000 men at the apex at Moscow
opposed to 120,000, 30,000 about Brest opposite 100,000 and 17,000
about Drissa confronted by 40,000, whilst in the center of the base at
Smolensk lay Victor’s corps, about 30,000. From Moscow to the Niemen was
550 m. In view of this situation Napoleon on the 4th of October sent
General Lauriston to the Russian headquarters to treat. Whilst waiting
his return Murat was enjoined to skirmish with Kutusov, and the emperor
himself worked out a scheme to assume the offensive with his whole army
towards St Petersburg, calling in Victor and St Cyr on the way. This
project was persisted with, until on the 18th Murat was himself attacked
and severely handled (action of Tarutino or Vinkovo). On the morning of
the 19th the whole army moved out to accept this challenge, and the
French were thoroughly worsted on the 24th in the battle of
Maloyaroslavetz.
The Retreat from Moscow
Then began the celebrated retreat. It
has generally been forgotten that the utter want of march discipline in
the French, and not the climatic conditions, was responsible for the
appalling disasters which ensued. Actually the frost came later than
usual that year, the 27th of October, and the weather was dry and
bracing; not till the 8th of November did the cold at night become
sharp. Even when the Beresina was reached on the 26th November, the cold
was far from severe, for the slow and sluggish stream was not frozen
over, as is proved by the fact that Eblé’s pioneers worked in the water
all through that terrible day. But the French army was already
completely out of hand, and the degree to which the panic of a crowd can
master even the strongest instinct of the individual is shown by the
conduct of the fugitives who crowded over the bridges, treading hundreds
under foot, whilst all the time the river was easily fordable and
mounted men rode backwards and forwards across it.
To return to the actual sequence of events. Kutusov had been very
slow in exploiting his success of the 24th and indeed had begun the
pursuit in a false direction; but about the 2nd of November,
headquarters of the French being at Vyazma, the Cossacks became so
threatening that the emperor ordered the army to march (as in Egypt) in
hollow square. This order, however, appears only to have been obeyed by
the Guards, with whom hencef’orward the emperor marched.
Kutusov had now overtaken the French, but fortunately for them he
made no effort to close with them, but hung on their flank, molesting
them with Cossacks and picking up stragglers. Thus the wreck of the
Grande Armée, now not more than fifty thousand strong, reached Smolensk
on the 9th and there rested till the x4th. The march was then resumed,
the Guard leading and Ney commanding the rearguard. Near Krasnoi on the
16th the Russian advanced guard tried to head the column off. Napoleon
halted a whole day to let the army dose up; and then attacked with his
old vigor and succeeded in clearing the road, but only at the cost of
leaving Ney and the rearguard to its fate. By a night march of
unexampled daring and difficulty Ney succeeded in breaking through the
Russian cordon, but when he regained touch with the main body at Orcha
only 800 of his 6000 men were still with him.
The
Beresina
From here Napoleon
dispatched orders to Victor to
join him at Borisov on the Beresina. The cold gave way and thaw set
in, leaving the country a morass, and information came that
Tschitschagov from the south had reached Borisov. He now selected Viesselovo as the point of passage and at
1AM on the 23rd sent orders to Oudinot to march thither and construct
bridges. In the execution of these orders Oudinot encountered the
Russian advanced guard near Borisov and drove the latter back in
confusion, though not before they had destroyed the existing bridge
there. This sudden resumption of the offensive threw Tschitschagov
into confusion. Thus time was gained for Victor also to come up and for
Oudinot to construct the bridges at Studienka near the above mentioned
place, but a spot in many respects better suited for the purpose.
Thither therefore Napoleon sent his pontonniers under General Eblé, but
on their arrival they found that no preparations had been made and much
time was lost. Meanwhile Victor, in doubt as to the real point of
passage, had left the road to Studienka open to Wittgenstein, who had
followed hard on his heels.
By 4PM on the 26th the bridges were finished and the passage
began, but not without resistance by the Russians, who were gradually
closing in. The crossing continued all night, though interrupted from
time to time by failures of the bridges. All day during the 27th
stragglers continued to cross, covered by such combatants as remained
under sufficient discipline to be employed. At 8AM on the 28th,
however, Tschitschagov and Wittgenstein moved forward on both banks of
the river to the attack, but were held off by the splendid self
sacrifice
of the few remaining troops under Ney, Oudinot and Victor, until about
1PM the last body of regular troops passed over the bridges, and only a
few thousand stragglers remained beyond the river.
The number of troops engaged by the French that day cannot be given
exactly. Oudinot’s and Victor’s men were relatively fresh and may have
totaled 20,000, whilst Ney can hardly have had more than 6000 of all
corps fighting under him. How many were killed can never be known, but
three days later the total number of men reported fit for duty had
fallen to 8800 only.
Final Operations
Henceforward the retreat of the army became
practically a headlong flight, and on the 5th of December, having
reached Smorgoni and seeing that nothing further could be done by him at
the front, the emperor handed over the command of what remained to
Murat, and left for Paris to organize a fresh army for the following
year. Travelling at the fullest speed, he reached the Tuileries on the
18th, after a journey of 312 hours.
Alter the emperor’s departure the cold set in with increased
severity, the thermometer falling to 230. On the 8th of December Murat
reached Vilna, whilst Ney with about 400 men and Wrede with 2000
Bavarians still formed the rearguard; but it was quite impossible to
carry out Napoleon’s instructions to go into winter quarters about the
town, so that the retreat was resumed on the 10th and ultimately
Konigsberg was attained on the 19th of December by Murat with 400 Guards
and 600 Guard cavalry dismounted.
Meanwhile on the extreme French right Schwarzenberg and his Austrians
had drifted away towards their own frontier, and the Prussian
contingent, which under Yorck formed part of
Macdonald’s command about Riga, had entered into a convention with the
Russians at Tauroggen (December 30) which deprived the French of their
last support upon their left. Konigsberg thus became untenable, and
Murat fell back to Posen, where on the 10th of January he handed over
his command to Eugene Beauharnais and returned to Paris.