1812, page 24
Marshal Oudinot, Duke of Reggio. On St Helena, Napoleon would call him “un buon’ uomo ma po di testa” (‘a decent sort of a fellow but not much brains’). He received his second wound of the campaign at the Berezina. Already his young duchess had defied the imperial ban on any woman crossing the Niemen and had come to Vilna (Vilnius) to nurse him.
Another Swiss, the famous military theorist Henri de Jomini. Briefly town governor of Smolensk, he was regarded by his superior at Vilna, the Dutchman Dirk van Hogendorp, as an insufferable popinjay. Another Dutchman, Major H. P. Everts, however, regarded him as ‘an officer absolutely equal to the situation’. Berthier disliked him. Miniature by Migneret.
As a prisoner-of-war in England, little voltigeur Jean-Marc Bussy had nearly been sent to serve with the British army in India but escaped back to France, only to be sent to Russia in the 3rd Swiss Regiment.
The émigré Count L. V. L. Rochechouart served with Tchitchakov’s army. He played a part in wresting the Borissow bridge from Dombrowski’s 17th (Polish) division, only to be almost trapped in Borissow town by Oudinot’s advance guard and swept away by Doumerc’s Cuirassiers on 18 November.
Marshal Michel Ney, Duke of Elchingen, Prince of the Moscova, hero of the retreat. By rejoining at Orsha with the remains of his rearguard ‘he had executed’, wrote Captain François – the ‘Dromedary of Egypt’ – ‘one of the finest and most courageous movements ever attempted by so feeble a corps. It would be to show oneself lacking in the esteem every military man ought to have for Marshal Ney not to recognize his rare talents.’ But Colonel Montesquiou de Fezensac was shocked at his lack of feeling for others’ sufferings.
General Count de Lorencez, Oudinot’s chief-of-staff. They had married two sisters on the eve of the campaign. Lorencez strongly defends Oudinot’s strategies and handling of the preliminaries to the Berezina crossing.
Marshal Macdonald, commander of X Corps, two-thirds of which were Prussians. He was of Jacobite ancestry. In late December his Prussian subordinate General Yorcke signed a convention of neutrality with the enemy that triggered off a Prussian rising against the French.
General Triaire, commanding Eugène’s rearguard, keeps halting and facing about. As usual, the Cossacks don’t dare attack. Half an hour after the wreckage of IV Corps has joined up with the Young Guard a mile and a half outside Krasnoië, Triaire’s men finally catch up,
‘and you can imagine our joyful surprise, when without realising how it had happened, we suddenly caught sight of a town lit up by bivouac fires and immediately afterwards of the Imperial Guard’s familiar bearskins.’
In fact the whole market town’s a blaze of light:
‘There were twenty times as many people in it than it could contain. Also, the brightness of the lights shining out through each house’s doorways and windows, the noise the soldiers were making, the considerable number of those less happy ones who had had to camp out of doors,’
all this at once removes any thoughts Griois and three of his fellow-officers may have had of finding shelter. Worn out, shivering to death, they slip in among the crowd on the market place
‘near a bivouac of élite gendarmes [headquarters police], where several assembled beams of wood made up a sparkling fire. The expression on the faces of the gendarmes as they saw four obviously suffering and needy officers approach was hardly encouraging. But it wasn’t the moment to be sensitive, and despite their patent ill will we occupied the ends of the beams. We could hardly even see the fire, but in revenge the wind blew all its smoke at us.’
How inhospitable can one be? The gendarmes spread out and consume whole cooking pots full of soup, round off their meal with ample coffee, tea and wine. ‘Such was the degree of insensibility we’d reached,’ adds Griois forgivingly, ‘we, in their place, would probably done the same.’ Only when his servant turns up with a konya can they mix themselves some rye flour and scarcely boiled water before wrapping themselves up in their ragged furs and getting a little sleep.
Davout too must be rescued. Perhaps also Ney. But just how far in the rear is I Corps and how big is the gap between them? No one knows.
Davout too had delayed leaving Smolensk at dawn on 16 November. Adjudging it ‘vitally important to provision his troops in order to prevent them deserting, he hadn’t regarded it as his duty to hurry’. And when I Corps had marched out it, too, had dragged with it masses of stragglers. Outside ‘the same ramparts as earlier had witnessed our triumph’ Lejeune had seen ‘an immense quantity of guns, all parked and having to be abandoned to the enemy’ – those taken from Sauvage’s regiment perhaps among them. Along the road to Lubnia ‘entirely covered with guns and ammunition no one had had time to spike or blow up’, through the cluttered defiles, marching, riding, slithering or trundling over the corpses of predecessors which would ‘have entirely obstructed the road if they hadn’t so often been used to fill up ditches and ruts’ its chief-of-staff Lejeune sees ‘trees receding into the distance, at which soldiers had tried to light a fire’ but died while doing so. ‘We saw them in their dozens around some green branches they’d vainly tried to ignite.’
Once I Corps had been ‘a rival to the Guard’. But since the Viazma débâcle its morale is prey to ‘an egoism not yet seen in the French armies’. And when a swarm of Don Cossacks swoops on its baggage train its drivers do as IHQ’s had done – ‘unharness their horses and make off with the most precious contents’. Among vehicles lost in this way is Davout’s personal wagon, containing his Marshal’s bâton, clad in purple velvet and beswarmed with imperial gold bees. Also a now wholly redundant map of India.16
One of the fugitives who tries to rejoin ‘across fields, woods and precipices’, with his two remaining wagons (‘naturally enough, seeing they each contained part of my resources’) – one his unit’s accounts wagon, the other the property of his colonel – is Lieutenant N. J. Sauvage, of the Train.17 After an hour and a half he meets up with his ‘most zealous protector and most faithful companion’ Captain Houdart:
‘Like many others he’d been relieved of the vehicles he’d been trying to save. All his booty was his two horses and a little portmanteau. More fortunate than myself, he’d extracted from one wagon a little barrel containing almost a gallon of brandy I’d been keeping in reserve since Moscow. At our first encounter we looked each other in the eye without knowing what to say. Each looked to the other like a fox who’d eaten his hen.’
Ever since Doroghobouï Sauvage has foreseen that he’ll lose his effects. So he too is troubled. What upsets him most is ‘the loss of victuals all the gold in the world couldn’t replace’. After a couple of swigs the two Train officers have just joined the ever-swelling column of isolated men when, noticing that the plain to their left is covered with Russian cavalry, they, ‘like everyone else who’d just abandoned more than 80 vehicles of all kinds containing a large part of the staff’s treasures’ hurriedly join ‘two companies of engineer sappers, 140–150 men in all’ already drawn up to the right of the road.
‘Already formed up in square, they were being charged by four strong columns of Cuirassiers of the Russian Guard.’
Houdart manages to get inside the square with his two horses, but Sauvage has to abandon his konya Coco, counts himself lucky to get in at all, even though he’s half crushed to death. Attacked on all its four faces, the gallant sappers fend off the four cuirassier squadrons,
‘at the front rank’s bayonet tips, which remained immovable, whilst the second and third ranks, though their muskets often misfired, kept up a well-nourished fire, flinging their murderous lead at the Muscovite troopers. These, unable to penetrate the square, and after briefly slashing at the defenceless mass, have to retire, leaving more than 50 of their corpses along the square’s faces.’
Sauvage is just getting out of the square again when, 25 yards away, he sees his Coco calmly nibbling at a few blades of straw sticking up through the snow half way between it and the rallying Russian squadrons. He’s just making a dash to grab her when he hears the order given for a new charge – thinks better of it – and nips back into the square, which had already got under way again. ‘So in less than two hours I’d lost horse, portmanteau and trunks, and found myself reduced to the lot of the snails, unembarrassed and carrying my all on my back.’
Not all Davout’s men are as resolute. Some individuals in a detached body that’s making its way back in hopes of joining up with Ney even let themselves be enticed with the spoils of the Korytnia affray, ‘brandy, peaches and liqueurs, biscuits from Reims, apricots in brandy, and spiced bread, all destined for the Emperor’s table’. Among the happy captors of ‘a wagon containing 60,000 gold napoleons’ are four Russian officers – ‘one had got drunk and lost all his share during the night!’ But though some of Davout’s men are enticed to lay down their arms, the head of the column, ‘consisting of 300 or 400 officers’ goes on its way ‘to shouts of ‘Vive Napoléon!’ The Russians couldn’t help admiring their devotion, for their loss was certain.’
But it takes all sorts to make a world. Ever since Mojaisk, von Roos has had his eye on a certain German light infantry officer who, though dragging with him a whole wagon-load of tea – ‘as one transports grain’ – has only been letting his batman brew it out of used tea leaves! But now, Roos is glad to see, poetic justice is done: the Cossacks take both the German and his tea.
At Krasnoië, meanwhile, the Guard has fallen in, ready to fall back at first glimpse of I Corps coming down the Smolensk road. This makes accommodation suddenly available for Griois and his three friends, who’re able ‘to enter one of the houses they were abandoning and get warm’. But the Red Lancers, ordered to be at Krasnoië before daybreak, have left their hamlet, reach their rendezvous on the town’s eastern outskirts, and find
‘the Imperial Guard already drawn up under arms. Its fires had been doused. All we could make out in the profound darkness was confused crowds, motionless. A lot of men seemed to have caught colds, because all round us we heard dull coughing. Riding past them we were led ahead to the left of the town; then drew up in line of battle, facing the enemy, whose fires could be seen afar off on the other bank of the Losima stream.’
It’s the whole Russian army, Dumonceau hears, that’s in presence, outflanking the French position, whose front is the frozen brook. He also hears how yesterday, thanks to the Middle Guard’s night action at Kontkovo, Eugène had broken through. It’s still pitch dark.
The Hessian Footguards have been standing to arms since 3 a.m. Franz Roeder sees his own company (originally 442 men and 26 officers) is now down to only seven sergeants and 27 men, and the Prince’s Own to 450 men and 23 officers. ‘What a brigade of Guards, of only four battalions!’ Yet, he consoles himself, ‘we’re much stronger than the French units!’ And now the great moment – the climax, from his point of view, of the whole voluntarily undertaken campaign – has come. With the rest of the Young Guard the Hessians are to fall back along the Smolensk road and form Napoleon’s battle front. Taking his personal dispositions Roeder writes a brief farewell letter to Sophie, his second wife, who’s providing a mother for his and his deeply loved Mina’s children. Generously he presents Prince Wittgenstein with a Göttingen sausage he’s come by, ‘so that he might have something for [the 20-year-old] Prince Emil18 in the impending battle.’ Then Roeder too, with many of his men dropping from fatigue, trudges back out into the snow along the Smolensk road, and ‘after two hours’, drawing up by battalions in line of battle to the left of the highway and suffering terribly from the cold and feeling drowsy ‘probably from hunger’ stands there until 8 a.m.
Paul de Bourgoing has fought in Spain and witnessed the appalling vestiges of Borodino. But this, he realises, is going to be his first real battle. And as ADC to General Delaborde, commander of the Young Guard’s 1st Division, he must live up to his romantic role.19 Before riding out of Krasnoië on a captured mare he has re-christened Grisélidis, he has therefore shed his thick fox fur and entrusted it to his plucky little servant Victor:
‘The battlefield was an immense snow-covered plain, crossed by a long and deep ravine, almost parallel with our front. On this escarpment’s very steep bank, fading away in the distance, were placed, to our left, a Hessian brigade, by now reduced to 500 or 600 men. Our line extended for about a mile and a half almost parallel with this ravine, its right resting on Krasnoië. In the centre, two regiments of the same strength, the 1st Tirailleurs and the 1st Voltigeurs. Then, to our right, a battalion of the Dutch [3rd] Grenadiers. Mortier, his staff, his escort of Red Lancers and his squadron of Portuguese cavalry commanded by the Marquis de Loulé had placed themselves out in front of this long line of infantry.’
To impress, if possible, the Russians the front has been
‘extended out of all measure by placing our men in two ranks instead of three, thus presenting to the enemy a line of battle lengthened by one-third, but proportionately weakened in the event of a hand-to-hand fight’.
A few yards away from the Hessians are the Fusiliers-Grenadiers:
‘To our left and behind us a ravine lay athwart the highway. This hollow sheltered all those who were near it. On our right were the Fusiliers-Chasseurs, with the head of their regiment a gunshot from the town. In front of us, 250 yards off, was a regiment of the Young Guard commanded by General Luron. Still farther to our right were the Old Grenadiers and Chasseurs, commanded by the Emperor, on foot.’
Chlapowski too, in his escort, sees how
‘the whole mass was commanded by the Emperor himself, on foot. Walking with firm steps, as if on a grand parade day, he placed himself in the centre of battlefield, facing the enemy’s batteries.’
Always, on days of battle, Dumonceau seems fated to enjoy some perfect vantage point. As it has grown light he has seen how the Young Guard’s regiments, ‘supported by a few guns’ already in position, are fringing the Losima’s semi-circular valley. And how, somewhat nearer the town’s exit, the heads of the Old Guard infantry columns are drawn up. Out ahead of them, ‘detached at the bottom of the ravine, at the village of Ouwarowo, whose defence had been confided to it and recognisable by their sky-blue greatcoats’ over their white and scarlet uniforms, are the Dutch (3rd) Grenadiers.
Now an hour has gone by. And at about 9 a.m. Roeder sees some Russian units, mostly artillery, approach and draw up in front of his Hessians. All along the line it’s the same. Artillery, artillery, artillery. The Russian plan is simply to wipe the Young Guard out with cannon fire. And after half an hour more the Russians open up at the Hessians across the snowy plain with
‘about ten guns and two howitzers. We were especially exposed to the fire of a battery of some six pieces lying a little to the left, which never stopped firing at us and with great violence.’
Within half-range of the Russian artillery almost the first Fusilier-Grenadier to fall is the man who’s always enjoyed making life hell for everyone else – the sadistic Adjutant-Major Delaître. ‘He was leading his horse, the bridle over his right arm’ and Bourgogne and two of his friends are immediately behind him:
‘A roundshot had taken off his legs just above the knees and his long riding-boots. He fell without a cry. Didn’t utter the least sound. We halted. Since he was blocking the path we were walking on we were forced to step over him to get on at all. I, the first to do so, looked at him as I passed on. His eyes were open and his teeth were chattering convulsively. I came closer to listen. Raising his voice, he said: “For God’s sake take my pistols and blow my brains out!” No one dared do him this service. Without replying we went on our way – most luckily, as it happened: for we hadn’t gone six yards before a second discharge carried off three of our men behind us, and killed the Adjutant-Major.’
Of all the cavalry regiments, the Polish Guard Lancers, Zalusky notices, are the most numerous. The rest, all that still have mounts, are standing beside their horses, 300–400 yards away behind them and their Dutch colleagues,
‘in columns of fours. Like ourselves they were on the crest of the plateau, so as to stand out at a distance. Seen in flank they seemed to be a considerable mass of cavalry. Finally, ahead of them, to our left rear, was the Viceroy’s corps, massed at the limit of the plateau, facing the point at which the road debouched along which the retarded corps should be arriving. All we could see of the enemy was some isolated horsemen in the distance, criss-crossing the vast snowy plain that spread out in front of us like an amphitheatre. As yet their masses were hidden from our gaze by some folds or other accidents of the terrain.’
It’s on the Smolensk road and the high ground in front of Krasnoië, of course, that Napoleon’s and his staffs telescopes are focused. Surely the head of Davout’s column must soon appear?
‘But instead of seeing the Marshal arrive all we saw in the direction of Smolensk were deep columns of the Russian army. They were beginning to surround us to the south, while the Russian cavalry was already showing itself beside and behind us.’
‘Under a sombre sky’ Dumonceau sees the fighting commence over at Ouwarowo, ‘against which the enemy directed reiterated efforts’. Now the Russian sharpshooters are ‘advancing in great numbers toward the ravine, and they’d already carried a small village on our right flank’. At this Murat – he no longer has so much as a brigade of cavalry to command – rushes up to Chlapowski and orders him
‘to follow with one squadron at the trot. The snow being deep, it was hard for our horses to do so. Halting with us in front of the little village the Russians had occupied, the King of Naples said to me: “Get into it!” This was an extraordinary order to give to cavalry, but we had to obey. As you’ll believe, I didn’t stroll through the village! Yet the snow, which almost came up to our horses’ girths, didn’t enable them to gallop.’
