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6th of September, when the fire began to abate.[56] Nine tenths of
the city became the prey of the flames, and pillage completed the
calamities that overtook the inhabitants who had remained in it.
It was only on the 7th of September that the emperor Alexander
received through Iaroslav a short despatch from Count Rostoptchin
to the effect that Kutuzov had decided to abandon Moscow. The next
day, the 8th of September, the fatal news of Napoleon’s occupation
of the capital of the empire was confirmed by a despatch from the
field-marshal dated the 4th of September and brought in by Colonel
Michaud. Kutuzov wrote from the village of Jilin (on the march to the
Borovsk bridge) as follows:
“After the battle of the 26th of August, which in spite of so much
bloodshed resulted in a victory for our side, I was obliged to abandon
the position near Borodino for reasons of which I had the honour to
inform your imperial majesty. The army was completely exhausted
after the combat. In this condition we drew nearer to Moscow, having
daily greatly to do with the advance guard of the enemy; besides this
there was no near prospect of a position presenting itself from which
I could successfully engage the enemy. The troops which we had
hoped to join could not yet come; the enemy had set two fresh
columns, one upon the Borovsk route and the other on the
Zvenigorod route, striving to act upon my rear from Moscow:
therefore I could not venture to risk a battle, the disadvantages of
which might have as consequences not only the destruction of the
army but the most sanguinary losses and the conversion of Moscow
itself to ashes.
“In this most uncertain position, after taking counsel with our first
generals, of whom some were of contrary opinion, I was forced to
decide to allow the enemy to enter Moscow, whence all the
treasures, the arsenal, and nearly all property belonging to the state
or private individuals had been removed, and in which hardly a
single inhabitant remained. I venture most humbly to submit to your
most gracious majesty that the entry of the enemy into Moscow is
not the subjection of Russia. On the contrary, I am now moving with
the army on the route to Tula, which will place me in a position to
avail myself of the help abundantly prepared in our governments.
Although I do not deny that the occupation of the capital is a most
painful wound, yet I could not waver in my decision.
“I am now entering upon operations with all the strength of the line,
by means of which, beginning with the Tula and Kaluga routes, my
detachments will cut off the whole line of the enemy, stretching from
Smolensk to Moscow, and thus avert any assistance which the
enemy’s army might possibly receive from its rear; by turning the
attention of the enemy upon us, I hope to force him to leave Moscow
and change the whole line of his operations. I have enjoined General
Vinzengerode to hold himself on the Tver route, having meanwhile a
regiment of Cossacks on the Iaroslav route in order to protect the
inhabitants against attacks from the enemy’s detachments. Having
now assembled my forces at no great distance from Moscow I can
await the enemy with a firm front, and as long as the army of your
imperial majesty is whole and animated by its known bravery and our
zeal, the yet retrievable loss of Moscow cannot be regarded as the
loss of the fatherland. Besides this, your imperial majesty will
graciously deign to agree that these consequences are indivisibly
connected with the loss of Smolensk and with the condition of
complete disorder in which I found the troops.”
This despatch from Prince Kutuzov was printed in the Northern
Post of the 18th of September, with the exception of the concluding
words of the report: “and with the condition of complete disorder in
which I found the troops.” The sorrowful news brought by Colonel
Michaud did not, however, shake the emperor Alexander in his
decision to continue the war and not to enter into negotiations with
the enemy. When he had finished listening to Michaud’s report, he
turned to him with the following memorable words: “Go back to the
army, and tell our brave soldiers, tell all my faithful subjects,
wherever you pass by, that even if I have not one soldier left, I will
put myself at the head of my dear nobles, of my good peasants, and
will thus employ the last resources of my empire; it offers more to me
than my enemies think for, but if ever it were written in the decrees of
divine providence that my dynasty should cease to reign upon the
throne of my ancestors, then, after having exhausted every means in
my power, I would let my beard grow and go to eat potatoes with the
last of my peasants, rather than sign the shame of my country and of
my beloved people whose sacrifices I know how to prize. Napoleon
or I—I or he; for he and I can no longer reign together. I have learned
to know him; he will no longer deceive me.”
“The loss of Moscow,” wrote Alexander to the crown prince of
Sweden on the 19th of September, “gives me at least the opportunity
of presenting to the whole of Europe the greatest proof I can offer of
my perseverance in continuing the struggle against her oppressor,
for after such a wound all the rest are but scratches. Now more than
ever I and the nation at the head of which I have the honour to be,
are decided to persevere. We should rather be buried beneath the
ruins of the empire than make terms with the modern Attila.”
The letter that Napoleon addressed to the emperor from Moscow,
dated the 8th of September, in which he disclaimed the responsibility
of the burning of the capital, was left unanswered. In informing the
crown prince of it, the emperor Alexander added: “It contains,
however, nothing but bragging.”

The Retreat of the Grand Army

At length the sorrowful days which the emperor Alexander had

lived through passed by, and the hope of better things in the future
manifested itself. On the 15th of October Colonel Michaud arrived in
St. Petersburg from the army, for the second time; but on this
occasion he was the bearer of the joyful intelligence of the victory of
Tarontin, which had taken place on the 6th of October. The envoy
also informed the emperor of the army’s desire that he should take
the command of it in person. The emperor replied as follows:
“All men are ambitious, and I frankly acknowledge that I am no
less ambitious than others; were I to listen to this feeling alone, I
should get into a carriage with you and set off to the army. Taking
into consideration the disadvantageous position into which we have
induced the enemy, the excellent spirit by which the army is
animated, the inexhaustible resources of the empire, the numerous
troops in reserve, which I have lying in readiness, and the orders that
I have despatched to the army of Moldavia—I feel undoubtingly sure
that the victory must be inalienably ours, and that it only remains for
us, as you say, to gather the laurels. I know that if I were with the
army all the glory would be attributed to me, and that I should occupy
a place in history; but when I think how little experience I have in the
art of war in comparison with my adversary, and that in spite of my
good will I might make a mistake, through which the precious blood
of my children might be shed, then setting aside my ambition, I am
ready willingly to sacrifice my glory for the good of the army. Let
those gather the laurels who are worthier of them than I; go back to
headquarters, congratulate Prince Michael Larionovitch with his
victory, and tell him to drive the enemy out of Russia and then I will
come to meet him and will lead him triumphantly into the capital.”
 RETREAT OF NAPOLEON FROM THE BURNING CITY OF
MOSCOW

(Painted for The Historians’ History of the World by

Thure de Thulstrup)

At that time the fate of the grande armée was already definitively
decided. Having lost all hope of the peace he so desired, Napoleon
began to prepare for retreat. The defeat of his vanguard at Tarontin
on the 6th of October hastened the departure of the French from
Moscow; it began in the evening of the same day. Napoleon’s
intention was first to move along the old Kaluga road, to join Murat’s
vanguard, and then go on to the new Kaluga road; the emperor thus
hoped to go round the Russian army and open a free access for
himself to Kaluga. But the partisan Seslavin, who had boldly made
his way through on to the Borovsk route discovered Napoleon’s
movements. Standing behind a tree in the road, he saw the carriage
in which was the emperor himself, surrounded by his marshals and
his guards. Not satisfied with this exploit, Seslavin besides caught a
non-commissioned officer of the Old Guard, who had got separated
from the others in the thickness of the wood, bound him, and
throwing him across his saddle, galloped off with him.
The intelligence obtained by Seslavin had for consequences the
immediate move of Dokhtorov’s corps to Malo-Iaroslavetz; at the
same time Kutuzov decided to follow from Tarontin with the whole
army, and these arrangements led, on the 12th of October, to the
battle near Malo-Iaroslavetz. The town passed from the hands of one
side to the other eight times, and although after a conflict of eighteen
hours it was finally given up to the French, yet Kutuzov succeeded in
opportunely concentrating the whole army to the south of it, at a
distance of two and one-half versts.
Here, as Ségur justly remarks, was stopped the conquest of the
universe, here vanished the fruits of twenty years of victory and
began the destruction of all that Napoleon had hoped to create. The
author of this success, Seslavin, writes: “The enemy was forestalled
at Malo-Iaroslavetz; the French were exterminated, Russia was
saved, Europe set free, and universal peace established: such are
the consequences of this great discovery.”
The field-marshal had now to decide the question whether a
general battle should be attempted for the annihilation of the French
army, or whether endeavours should be made to attain this object by
more cautious means. The leader stopped at the latter decision. “It
will all fall through without me,” said Kutuzov, in reply to the impatient
partisans of decisive action. He expressed his idea more definitely
on this occasion to the English general Wilson, who was then at the
Russian headquarters: “I prefer to build a ‘golden bridge,’ as you call
it, for my adversary, than to put myself in such a position that I might
receive a ‘blow on the neck’ from him. Besides this, I again repeat to
you what I have already several times told you—I am not at all sure
that the complete annihilation of the emperor Napoleon and his army
would be such a great benefit to the universe. His inheritance would
give the continent not to Russia or any other power, but to that power
which now already rules the seas; and then her predominance would
be unbearable.” Wilson replied: “Do what you ought, come what
may.” The Russian army began to depart on the night between the
13th and 14th of October for Detchina.g

Napoleon on the Road to Smolensk

When, on the 14th of October, Kutuzov and his army approached

Detchina, Napoleon turned again from Gorodni in the direction of
Malo-Iaroslavetz. Half-way there, a report was brought to him which
announced that the Russian outposts had quitted this latter town.
Napoleon stopped, and, seating himself near a fire which had been
lighted in the open: “What design,” he said, “had Kutuzov in
abandoning Malo-Iaroslavetz?” He was silent for a moment and then
added: “He wants to stop our road to the south.” And, determined as
he was not to fight, Napoleon ordered the army to return along the
Smolensk road, preferring to contend with want of provisions rather
than find himself on the other track, under the necessity of using
force in order to pursue the direction he had intended to take when
he quitted Moscow. Thus the whole plan of campaign was thwarted
and the fortune of Napoleon compromised. From Malo-Iaroslavetz to
Waterloo Napoleon’s career presents nothing but a series of defeats,
rarely interrupted by a few victories. It was in profound silence and
with dejection painted on every visage that the French army, as
though under the presentiment of its fatal destiny, retraced the way
to Smolensk. Napoleon marched pensive in the midst of his
downcast regiments, reckoning with Marshal Berthier the enormous
distances to be traversed and the time it must take him to reach
Smolensk and Minsk, the only towns on the Vilna road where food
and ammunition had been prepared.
 Kutuzov, learning on the 14th of October that Napoleon had left
Malo-Iaroslavetz, immediately advanced his army on the Miadin road
in the direction of some linen factories, and detached Platov with
fifteen Cossack regiments and some flying squadrons, that they
might inform him of Napoleon’s movements. The next day he
received from these squadrons the assurance that the latter was
indeed effecting his retreat by the Smolensk route. Thus the
manœuvres of Kutuzov were crowned with complete success. Thus
it happened that just two months after the 17th of August, the day on
which he had assumed command of the armies, the conqueror’s
eagles were flying with all speed towards the place whence they had
taken flight. The movement carried out on the enemy’s left flank as
far as Malo-Iaroslavetz, and thence to the linen factories,
disconcerted all Napoleon’s plans, closed to him the road to Kaluga
and Iukhnov, and forced him to follow a route which two months
before had been ruined from end to end, and which led across
deserts that Napoleon seemed to have prepared for himself. The
enemy’s army, which still amounted to one hundred thousand men,
continued to bear a threatening aspect, but the want of provisions
and the attacks it had to repulse must diminish its forces and hasten
its disorganisation. Hunger, like a gnawing worm, was exhausting the
enemy, while Russian steel completed his destruction. The nearest
French magazines were at Smolensk, eight hundred versts away. To
cross this distance with the little food he possessed, to suffer an
immense loss, and, in addition, to be continually exposed to attacks
—such were the exploits now before Napoleon and such was the
position in which Kutuzov had placed him.
The question was: How is Napoleon to be pursued? What
direction shall the army take in order to derive all the advantage
possible from the retreat of the French? To follow the enemy’s steps
in columns was impossible without exposing the army to the pangs
of hunger. “I think,” said Kutuzov, “that I shall do Napoleon most
harm by marching parallel with him and acting on the way according
to the movements he may execute.” This happy idea seemed to be a
basis for the manœuvres which Kutuzov subsequently effected. He
gave orders to the army to march on Viazmabi Kussov, Suleïka,
Dubrova, and Bikov; to Miloradovitch to direct his way, with two
corps of infantry and two of cavalry, between the army and the route
to Smolensk, and to approach this route in the neighbourhood of
Gzhatsk, and then, proceeding in the direction of Viazma, along the
same road, to take advantage of every favourable opportunity of
attacking the enemy; to Platov, who had been reinforced by
Paskevitch’s division, to follow the French in the rear; and finally to
the guerilla corps to fall on the enemy’s columns in front and in flank.
In ordering these dispositions Kutuzov addressed the following order
of the day to the army: “Napoleon, who thought only of ardently
pursuing a war which has become national, without foreseeing that it
might in one moment annihilate his whole army, now finding in every
inhabitant a soldier ready to repulse his perfidious seductions, and
seeing the firm resolution of the whole population to present, if need
be, their breasts to the sword directed against their beloved country
—Napoleon, in fine, after having attained the object of his vain and
foolhardy thoughts, namely that of shaking all Russia by rendering
himself master of Moscow, has suddenly made up his mind to beat a
retreat. We are at this moment in pursuit of him, whilst other Russian
armies occupy Lithuania anew and are ready to act in concert with
us to complete the ruin of the enemy who has ventured to menace
Russia. In his flight he abandons his caissons, blows up his
projectiles, and covers the ground with the treasures carried off from
our churches. Already Napoleon hears murmurs raised by all ranks
of his army; already hunger is making itself felt, while desertion and
disorder of every kind are manifested amongst the soldiers. Already
the voice of our august monarch rings out, crying to us, ‘Extinguish
the fire of Moscow in the blood of the enemy. Warriors, let us
accomplish that task, and Russia will be content with us—a solid
peace will be again established within the circle of her immense
frontiers! Brave soldiers of Russia, God will aid us in so righteous an
achievement!’”
Immediately, as Kutuzov had ordered, a general movement of the
army began in the enemy’s rear. The French left on the road sick,
wounded—all this might delay the march of the retiring troops. The
cavalry began no longer to show themselves in the rearguard. For
lack of food and shoeing the horses became so enfeebled that the
cavalry were outdistanced by the infantry, who continued to hasten
their retreat. Speed was the enemy’s only means of escaping from
the deserts in which no nourishment could be procured, and of
reaching the Dnieper, where the French counted on finding some
corn magazines, and forming a junction with the corps of Victor and
St. Cyr and the battalions on the march, the various columns which
were there at the moment, the depots, and a great number of
soldiers who had fallen off from the army and were following it.
Convinced of the necessity of hurrying their steps, all, from the
marshals down to the meanest soldiers, went forward at full speed.
But the temperature grew daily more rigorous. The cold wind of
autumn rendered bivouacs insupportable to the enemy, and drove
him thence in the morning long before daybreak. He struck camp in
the darkness, and lighted his way along the road by means of
lanterns. Each corps tried to pass the other. The passage of the
rivers, on rafts or bridges, was made in the greatest disorder, and the
baggage accumulated so as to arrest the movements of the army.
The provisions which the soldiers had laid in at Moscow, and which
they carried on their backs, were quickly consumed, and they began
to eat horseflesh. The prices of food and of warm clothes and
footgear became exorbitant. To stray from the road for the purpose
of procuring food was an impossibility, for the Cossacks who were
prowling right and left killed or made prisoners all who fell into their
hands. The peasants from the villages bordering on the route,
dressed in cloaks, shakos, plumed helmets, and steel cuirasses
which they had taken from the French, often joined the Don
Cossacks or Miloradovitch’s advance guard. Some were armed with
scythes, others with thick, iron-shod staves, or halberds, and a few
carried firearms. They came out of the forests in which they had
taken refuge with their families, greeted the Russian army on its
appearance, congratulated it on the flight of the enemy, and by way
of farewells to the latter took a just vengeance upon it. With the
enemy the fear of falling into the hands of the Cossacks and
peasants triumphed over the sense of hunger and deterred them
from plundering. The French began to throw away their arms. The
first to set the example were the regiments of light cavalry, to whom
infantry muskets had been distributed at Moscow. The regiments
being mixed together, they shook off all discipline. The disarmed
men were at first few in number, and as they trailed along in the
wake of the army they agglomerated them like snowballs.
The sick and those overcome by fatigue were abandoned on the
road without the least pity. In fear of losing their flags the leaders of
regiments removed them from their staves and gave them in keeping
to the strongest and most tried soldiers, who hid them in their
haversacks or under their uniforms, or wrapped them round their
bodies. When Napoleon had passed Gzhatsk, he no longer rode on
horseback in the midst of his troops, but drove in a carriage,
wrapped himself in a green velvet cloak lined with sable furs, and put
on warm boots and a fur cap.

The Battle of Viazma; Smolensk is Found Evacuated

The retreat was performed so rapidly, that Miloradovitch could not

begin the pursuit of the enemy till he had arrived at Viazma. On the
22nd of October, he attacked the French near this town and beat
them. Three guns and two flags were taken from them and two
thousand of them were made prisoners. When Viazma had been
passed, Kutuzov ordered Miloradovitch to follow in the enemy’s track
and to press him as much as possible, and Platov to get ahead of his
right, and attack it in front, as Orlov Denissov was to do on his left;
the guerillas had orders to march quickly on Smolensk. He exhorted
the whole army to harass the French day and night. Kutuzov with the
main body proceeded on the left, on a level with Miloradovitch, to be
able to reach Orscha by the shortest road, in case Napoleon should
effect his retreat on that town; but, if he took the direction of Mohilev,
to stop his way and cover the district whence the Russian army drew
its provisions. Kutuzov was inflexible in the resolution he had taken
to keep Napoleon on the Smolensk road, which was so completely
wasted, and to force him to die of hunger there rather than allow him
to penetrate into the southern governments, where he might have
obtained provisions. Anxious to know if Napoleon would not bear to
the left towards Ielna and Mstislavl, and thence to Mohilev, Kutuzov
did not confine himself to insisting on personally directing his army
on the road, whence he could prevent this movement, but he
ordered the Kaluga militia, reinforced by Cossacks and some regular
cavalry regiments, to advance rapidly from Kaluga and Roslavl on
Ielna; that of Tula to march on Roslavl, that of Smolensk on Ielna,
and that of Little Russia to do its utmost promptly to occupy Mohilev.
Such were, in outline, the directions which Kutuzov gave to the
army after the battle of Viazma, when the enemy found itself under
the stern necessity of struggling with a new calamity which it had not
yet experienced—namely, severe cold. The winds raged and thick
snow fell for five days; it blinded the soldiers and lay so thick as to
arrest their march. The French horses, not being rough-shod, fell
under the guns, under the carts, and under their riders; men were
lying on the route, dead or dying, dragging themselves along like
reptiles, in villages reduced to ashes and round overturned wagons
and caissons which the powder had blown to pieces. Many among
them were seized with madness. It was in this state that, on the 31st
of October, Napoleon led his army back to Smolensk, which he
hastened to reach as the promised land, never doubting that he
would be able to halt there. The thought of wintering in Smolensk
supported soldiers exhausted by fatigue and warmed those
overcome by the cold; each one collected his remaining strength to
reach the town where their misfortunes were to end. On catching
sight of the distant summits of Smolensk, the enemy rejoiced and
forgot hunger and thirst. Arrived at the town they rushed into it by
thousands, stifling and killing each other in its narrow gates, ran for
the provisions they believed themselves sure of finding, and seeking
for warm habitations; but it was in vain; for soon like a thunderclap
the news was echoed that there was in Smolensk neither food nor
refuge; that it was impossible to stay there; that they must go on.
Twenty degrees of cold came to crown their misfortunes, but this
suddenly ceased—the next day it thawed; otherwise the sudden
extinction of the enemy would have been inevitable.
Smolensk presented a horrible spectacle. From the Moscow gate
to the line of the Dnieper, the ground was strewn with corpses and
dead horses. Fire had turned the Moscow suburb into a desert; in it
and on the snow which covered the ice on the Dnieper were to be
seen wagons, caissons of ammunition, ambulances, cannon,
pontoons, muskets, pistols, bayonets, drums, cuirasses, shakos,
bearskins, musical instruments, ramrods, swords, and sabres.
Amongst the corpses on the banks appeared a long file of wagons,
not yet unharnessed but whose horses had fallen down and whose
drivers lay half dead in their seats. In other places horses were lying
with the entrails protruding from their bodies. Their bellies were split
open, for the soldiers had tried to warm their frozen limbs there, or to
appease their hunger. Where the river banks ended, along the road
which skirted the walls of the town, were seen five versts away six or
more ranks of caissons of ammunition and projectiles, calashes from
Moscow, carriages, droshkies, travelling forges. The French, frozen
with cold, ran hither and thither, wrapped in priests’ cassocks, in
surplices, in women’s cloaks, with straw wound about their legs, and
hoods, Jews’ caps, or mats on their heads; nearly all cursed
Napoleon, emitted volleys of blasphemies, and, calling upon Death
in their despair, bared their breasts and fell under his inexorable
scythe.

Kutuzov’s Policy

Kutuzov, who had reduced Napoleon to this horrible situation, and

who, by means of his flying squadrons, was kept aware of his every
step, had succeeded in hiding all his own movements. Napoleon
believed, as we see by the orders he gave his marshals, that
Kutuzov was not marching parallel with the French army, but behind
it; and yet Kutuzov continued his side movement round Smolensk,
daily receiving reports of defeats of the enemy.
Already, between Moscow and Smolensk, one hundred pieces of
cannon had been taken from the French and 10,000 men made
prisoners. In congratulating the army on its successes, Kutuzov said
in an order of the day: “After the brilliant success which we obtain
every day and everywhere over the enemy, it only remains for us to
pursue him speedily, and perhaps the soil of that Russia which he
sought to subjugate will enclose all his bones within her breast; let us
then pursue him without pause. Winter declares itself, the frost
increases, the snow is blinding. Is it for you, children of the North, to
fear all these harsh inclemencies? Your iron breasts resist them as
they resist the rage of enemies. They are the ramparts, the hope of
our country, against which everything is broken. If momentary
privations should make themselves felt, you will know how to support
them. True soldiers are distinguished by patience and courage. The
old will set an example to the young. Let all remember Suvarov; he
taught us to endure hunger and cold where victory and the honour of
the Russian people were concerned. Forward, march! God is with
us! The beaten enemy precedes us; may calm and tranquillity be
restored behind us.”i
Kutuzov did not allow himself to be tempted by the disastrous
position of his adversary and remained faithful to the cautious policy
he had adopted, sparing as far as possible the troops entrusted to
him. He never once altered his ruling idea, and remained true to it
until the very end of the campaign. To those who were in favour of
more energetic measures he replied: “Our young folks are angry with
me for restraining their outbursts. They should take into
consideration that circumstances will do far more for us by
themselves than our arms.” Kutuzov’s indecision at Viazma and
Krasnoi, Tchitchagov’s mistakes, and Count Wittgenstein’s caution,
however, gave Napoleon’s genius the possibility of triumphing with
fresh brilliancy over the unprecedented misfortunes that pursued
him: on the 14th of November began the passage of the French
across the Beresina at Stondianka, and then the pitiful remains of
the grande armée, amounting to nine thousand men, hurriedly
moved, or it would be more correct to say fled to Vilna, closely
pursued by the Russian forces. The frost, which had reached thirty
degrees, completed the destruction of the enemy; the whole route
was strewn with the bodies of those who had perished from cold and
hunger. Seeing the destruction of his troops and the necessity of
creating a fresh army in order to continue the struggle, Napoleon
wrote from Molodechno on the 21st of November his twenty-ninth
bulletin, by which he informed Europe of the lamentable issue of the
war, begun six months previously, and after transferring the
command of the army to the king of Naples, Murat, he left Smorgoni
for Paris on the 23rd of November.
 As the remains of Napoleon’s army approached the frontiers of
Russia, the complicated question presented itself to the emperor
Alexander as to whether the Russian forces should stop at the
Vistula and complete the triumph of Russia by a glorious peace or
continue the struggle with Napoleon in order to re-establish the
political independence of Germany and the exaltation of Austria. The
emperor inclined to the latter decision—that is, to the prolongation of
the war; such an intention was in complete accordance with the
conviction he had previously expressed: “Napoleon or I—I or he; but
together we cannot reign.” At the end of the year 1812 the final
object of the war was already marked out by the emperor Alexander.
This is evident from his conversation with Mademoiselle Sturdza not
long before his departure for Vilna, in which the sovereign shared
with her his feelings of joy at the happy results of the war. Alexander
referred in their colloquy to the extraordinary man who, blinded by
fortune, had occasioned so many calamities to mankind. Speaking of
the enigmatical character of Napoleon, he called to mind how he had
studied him during the negotiations at Tilsit; in reference to this the
emperor said: “The present time reminds me of all that I heard from
that extraordinary man at Tilsit. Then we talked a long while together,
for he liked to show me his superiority and lavishly displayed before
me all the brilliancy of his imagination. ‘War,’ said he to me once, ‘is
not at all such a difficult art as people think, and to speak frankly it is
sometimes hard to explain exactly how one has succeeded in
winning a battle. In reality it would seem that he is vanquished who is
afraid of his adversary and that the whole secret lies in that. There is
no leader who does not dread the issue of a battle; the whole thing is
to hide this fear for the longest time possible. It is only thus that he
can frighten his opponent, and then there is no doubt of ultimate
success.’ I listened,” continued the emperor, “with the deepest
attention to all that he was pleased to communicate to me on the
subject, firmly resolving to profit by it when the occasion presented
itself, and in fact I hope that I have since acquired some experience
in order to solve the question as to what there remains for us to do.”
“Surely, Sire, we are forever secure against such an invasion?”
replied Mademoiselle Sturdza. “Would the enemy dare again to
cross our frontiers?” “It is possible,” answered Alexander, “but if a
lasting and solid peace is desired it must be signed in Paris; of that I
am firmly convinced.”
Kutuzov was of an entirely opposite opinion; he considered that
Napoleon was no longer dangerous to Russia, and that he must be
spared on account of the English, who would endeavour to seize
upon his inheritance to the detriment of Russia and other continental
powers. All the thoughts of the field-marshal were directed to the
salvation of the fatherland, and not that of Europe, as those English
and German patriots would have desired, who were already
accustomed to look upon Russia as a convenient tool for the
attainment and consolidation of their political aims. Kutuzov’s
opinions, as might have been expected, were strongly censured by
those around Alexander and in general by persons who judged of
military movements from the depths of their studies.
The frame of mind of such persons is best described in the
correspondence of Baron Ampheldt, who devoted the following witty
lines to this burning question: “Our affairs might even go still better if
Kutuzov had not taken upon himself the form of a tortoise, and
Tchitchagov that of a weather-cock, which does not follow any plan:
the latter sins by a superfluity of intellect and a want of experience,
the former by excessive caution. I suppose, however, that after his
passage across the Niemen Bonaparte has not a very large
company left; cold, hunger, and Cossack spears must have
occasioned him some difficulties. Meanwhile, as long as the man
lives, we shall never be in a condition to count on any rest; and
therefore war to the death is necessary. Our good emperor shares
these views, in spite of the opinion of those contemptible creatures
who would have wished to stop at the Vistula. But this is not the
desire of the people, who, however, alone bear the burden of the war
and in whom are to be found more healthy good sense and feeling
than in powdered heads ornamented with orders and embroideries.”
On the 28th of November the Russian forces occupied Vilna, after
having taken 140 guns, more than 14,000 prisoners, and vast
quantities of stores. Prince Kutuzov arrived on the 30th of
November; he came to a place with which he was already well
acquainted, having formerly filled the position of Lithuanian military
governor. The population, forgetting Napoleon and their vanished
dreams of the re-establishment of the kingdom of Poland, welcomed
the triumphant leader with odes and speeches, and on the stage of
the theatre Kutuzov’s image was represented with the inscription:
“The saviour of the country.”
After the evacuation of Vilna the enemy fled, without stopping to
Kovno; but on the 2nd of December Platov’s Cossacks made their
appearance in the town, which was quickly cleared of the French.
The piteous remainder of that once brilliant army crossed the
Niemen; only 1,000 men with nine guns and about 20,000 unarmed
men were left of it. “God punished the foolish,” wrote the emperor
Nicholas twenty-seven years later in his order of the day to the
troops, on the occasion of the unveiling of the Borodino monument;
“the bones of the audacious foreigners were scattered from Moscow
to the Niemen—and we entered Paris.”g

CAMPAIGNS OF THE GRAND ALLIANCE (1813-1814 A.D.)

Rallying with amazing promptitude from the

[1813 a.d.] tremendous blow he had suffered in Russia,
Napoleon raised a fresh army of 300,000 men in
the beginning of 1813, in order to crush the insurrection in which all
northern Germany had joined, with the exception of Saxony, after
Prussia had openly adhered to the Russian alliance. By the Treaty of
Kalish, which established that alliance, Alexander engaged not to lay
down his arms until Prussia had recovered the territory it possessed
before the war of 1800. Great efforts were now made by the cabinets
of St. Petersburg and Berlin to detach Austria from France; and so
strongly were the national feelings declared in favour of that policy,
that Metternich had the utmost difficulty in withstanding the torrent,
and evading the hazard of committing his government prematurely.
Temporising with consummate art, he offered the mediation of his
government between the hostile parties, and at the same time
prosecuted his military preparations on such a scale as would enable
Austria to act no subordinate part on the one side or the other in the
coming struggle. Meanwhile, hostilities began; the Russians and
Prussians were defeated by Napoleon at Lützen and at Bautzen,
where Alexander commanded the allied armies in person; and they
were fortunate in concluding an armistice with him at Pleisswitz on
the 4th of June, 1813. They availed themselves of this truce to
reinforce their armies, and more than sixty thousand fresh troops
reached the seat of war from the south and the middle of Russia.
On the 27th, Austria signed a treaty at Reichenbach, in Silesia,
with Russia and Prussia, by which she bound herself to declare war
with France, in case Napoleon had not, before the termination of the
armistice, accepted the terms of peace about to be proposed to him.
A pretended congress for the arrangement of the treaty was again
agreed to by both sides; but Napoleon delayed to grant full powers to
his envoy, and the allies, who had meanwhile heard of Wellington’s
victory at Vittoria and the expulsion of the French from Spain, gladly
seized this pretext to break off the negotiations. Meanwhile,
Metternich, whose voice was virtually to decide Napoleon’s fate, met
him at Dresden with an offer of peace, on condition of the surrender
of the French conquests in Germany. Napoleon, with an infatuation
only equalled by his attempts to negotiate at Moscow, spurned the
proposal, and even went the length of charging Count Metternich
with taking bribes from England. The conference, which was
conducted on Napoleon’s part in so insulting a manner, and at times
in tones of passion so violent as to be overheard by the attendants,
lasted till near midnight on the 10th of August, the day with which the
armistice was to expire. The fatal hour passed by, and that night
Count Metternich drew up the declaration of war, on the part of his
government, against France. Austria coalesced with Russia and
Prussia, and the Austrian general, Prince Schwarzenberg, was
appointed generalissimo of the whole of the allied armies.
The plan of the allies was to advance with the main body under
Schwarzenberg, 190,000 strong, through the Hartz mountains to
Napoleon’s rear. Blücher, with 95,000 men, was meanwhile to cover
Silesia, or in case of an attack by Napoleon’s main body to retire
before it and draw it further eastward. Bernadotte, crown prince of
Sweden, was to cover Berlin with 90,000 men, and in case of a
victory was to form a junction, rearward of Napoleon, with the main
body of the allied army. A mixed division under Wallmoden, 30,000
strong, was destined to watch Davout in Hamburg, whilst the
Bavarian and Italian frontiers were respectively guarded by 25,000
Austrians under Prince Reuss, and 40,000 Austrians under Hiller.
Napoleon’s main body, consisting of 250,000 men, was concentrated
in and around Dresden.
The campaign opened with the march of a French force under
Oudinot against Berlin. This attack having completely failed,
Napoleon marched in person against Blücher, who cautiously retired
before him. Dresden being thus left uncovered, the allies changed
their plan of operations, and marched straight upon the Saxon
capital. But they arrived too late, Napoleon having already returned
thither, after despatching Vandamme’s corps to Bohemia, to seize
the passes and cut off Schwarzenberg’s retreat. The allies attempted
to storm Dresden, on the 26th of August, but were repulsed after
suffering a frightful loss. On the following day Napoleon assumed the
offensive, cut off the left wing of the allies, and made an immense
number of prisoners, chiefly Austrians. The main body fled in all
directions; part of the troops disbanded, and the whole must have
been annihilated but for the misfortune of Vandamme, who was
taken prisoner, with his whole corps, on the 29th. It was at the battle
of Dresden that Moreau, who had come from his exile in America to
aid the allies against his old rival Napoleon, was killed by a cannon
ball whilst he was speaking to the emperor Alexander.
At the same time (August 26th) a splendid victory was gained by
Blücher, on the Katzbach, over Macdonald, who reached Dresden
almost alone, to say to Napoleon, “Your army of the Bober is no
longer in existence.” This disaster to the French arms was followed
by the defeat of Ney at Dennewitz by the Prussians and Swedes on
the 6th of September. Napoleon’s generals were thrown back in
every quarter, with immense loss, on Dresden, towards which the
allies now advanced again, threatening to enclose it on every side.
Napoleon manœuvred until the beginning of October, with the view
of executing a coup de main against Schwarzenberg and Blücher,
but their caution foiled him, and at length he found himself compelled
to retreat, lest he should be cut off from the Rhine, for Blücher had
crossed the Elbe, joined Bernadotte, and approached the head of
the main army under Schwarzenberg. Moreover, the Bavarian army
under Wrede declared against the French on the 8th of October, and
was sent to the Main to cut off their retreat. Marching to Leipsic, the
emperor there encountered the allies on the 16th of October, and
fought an indecisive action, which, however, was in his case
equivalent to a defeat. He strove to negotiate a separate peace with
the emperor of Austria, as he had before done with regard to the
emperor of Russia, but no answer was returned to his proposals.
After some partial engagements on the 17th, the main battle was
renewed on the 18th; it raged with prodigious violence all day, and
ended in the defeat of Napoleon; Leipsic was stormed on the
following day, and the French emperor narrowly escaped being
taken prisoner. He had lost 60,000 men in the four days’ battle; with
the remainder of his troops he made a hasty and disorderly retreat,
and after losing many more in his disastrous flight, he crossed the
Rhine on the 20th of October with 70,000 men. The garrisons he had
left behind gradually surrendered, and by November all Germany, as
far as the Rhine, was freed from the presence of the French.
In the following month the allies simultaneously invaded France in
three directions: Bülow from Holland, Blücher from Coblentz, and
Schwarzenberg, with the allied sovereigns, by Switzerland and the
Jura; whilst Wellington also was advancing from the Pyrenees, at the
head of the army which had liberated the peninsula. In twenty-five
days after their passage of the Rhine the allied armies had
succeeded, almost without firing a shot, in wresting a third of France
from the grasp of Napoleon. Their united forces stretched diagonally
across France in a line three hundred miles long, from the frontiers
of Flanders to the banks of the Rhone. On the other hand, the
French emperor, though his force was little more than a third of that
which was at the command of the allies, had the advantage of an
incomparably more concentrated position, his troops being all
stationed within the limits of a narrow triangle, of which Paris, Laon,
and Troyes formed the angles. Besides this, there was no perfect
unanimity among his enemies. Austria, leaning on the matrimonial
alliance, was reluctant to push matters to extremities, if it could
possibly be avoided; Russia and Prussia were resolute to overthrow