1812, page 4
On this snowy morning of 27 October even the Intendance-Générale, escorting the Treasure, has to depart in a hurry. ‘The Cossack guns were at half-range.’ But his servants having found a chicken and some onions, Belot de Kergorre, loth to abandon his stew, delays departure until the last possible moment. And indeed, though it’s only a week since the army left Moscow, food’s beginning to be in short supply. As yet Colonel Montesquiou deFezensac of the 4th Line (III Corps) is noticing there are large discrepancies between various units:
‘One regiment had kept some oxen and had no bread; another had flour but lacked meat. In the same regiment some companies were dying of hunger while others were living in abundance. And though the superior officers ordered them to share and share alike, egoism employed every means to outwit their supervision and escape their authority.’
I Corps’ horses, Paymaster Duverger is distressed to see,
‘always on the march, had nothing to eat and were collapsing from fatigue and abstinence. The collapse of a horse was our good fortune. The poor beast was hacked to pieces. Horseflesh isn’t bad for the health. But it’s hard and fibrous. Some preferred the liver. The nights were beginning to be long and cold. We were sleeping on a damp and frozen soil. The ideal bivouac was one in which we could stretch out softly on a little straw in front of a fire of dry wood, sheltered by a pine forest. If there was horse stew, some wheatbread, and a flask of aquavit to pass around, it was a feast.’
‘From the second day of the retreat,’ Davout’s reluctant chief-of-staff, the future artist Baron Louis-François Lejeune, says:
‘a cold fine drizzle came to add itself to our mental torments, the difficulties of the route and the inconveniences of the bad weather. The cold damp nights spent in bivouac, the inadequate nourishment from unleavened munition bread or badly cooked broth began to give the troops dysentery.21 The sick no longer had the strength to keep up with their units and were falling behind.’
Even the 7th Hussars’ new colonel Victor Dupuy is having to subsist all day on a cup of sugared coffee for breakfast. All the long way from the Niemen to Moscow his regiment had been in the extreme van. Then they’d starved in the Winkovo camp. Had no share in Moscow’s culinary riches. Now Roussel d’Hurbal’s brigade of Bruyères’ light cavalry division of Nansouty’s 1st Cavalry Corps is forming IV Corps’ rearguard. Arriving at the regiment’s bivouac Dupuy walks to and fro beside the road,
‘waiting until some Polish marauders should pass. I bought some rare and furtive provisions for their weight in gold. A bit of pork grilled on charcoal, or some fistfuls of flour dipped in melted snow helped me and my companions to believe we weren’t hungry.’
Unfortunately this windfall only upsets their stomachs. But then Dupuy has a real stroke of luck:
‘I saw my former farrier of the élite company of the 11th Chasseurs, Bouton by name, and now sergeant-major of the Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard. He was escorting a wagon. He offered me some sugar and coffee. I emptied all my dirty linen out of my portmanteau and furnished it with these provisions, very useful to me thereafter. Having taken a good dose of coffee in the morning, I didn’t feel hungry all day.’
Everyone’s feeling more and more miserable. Particularly so sous-Lieutenant Pierre Auvray of the 23rd Dragoons, escorting the baggage hour after hour,
‘without any rest from 2 a.m. to 11 p.m. and at each moment being attacked by peasants dressed as Cossacks who charged the column to get hold of the superb carriages many officers had supplied themselves with in Moscow. These carriages, laden with gold, silver and victuals, drew the attention of peasants whom the fires had deprived of their asylums. Every day they took some, along with their drivers, whom they stripped and sent back again.’
Mailly-Nesle hears a new word in the French language, ‘se démoraliser’. Defines it as ‘a kind of nostalgia’. Another officer who dates its first out-break from this second day of the retreat is Lieutenant N. L. Planat de la Faye, general factotum and ‘man of letters’ to General Lariboisière, supreme commander of the army’s artillery. IHQ and the artillery staff has just got to Vereia when
‘after dinner an officer came in who’d had nothing to eat since morning. Though by nature compassionate and disposed toward everything called sacrifice and devotion, I myself hadn’t been exempt from the barbarism and brutal egoism,’ now beginning to prevail. ‘We had nothing left to give him except a little bread or biscuit and a glass of bad brandy.’ Irritated, the officer lodges a formal complaint. Since it’s Planat’s comrade and friend Honoré de Lariboisière, the general’s surviving son, who’s responsible for distributing rations, he goes to his father to explain. But ever since his other son Frédéric’s death after Borodino22 old Lariboisière has been deeply depressed. And all Honoré gets is a furious upbraiding. That day, too, Planat loses – for all futurity – another friend, on account of a ‘little piece of meat not quite equally divided’.
IV Corps headquarters has spent the night in a hut in the miserable hamlet of Alféréva. Only Prince Eugène and his divisional generals have been able to get some shelter. His staff-captain Labaume, too, dates the disintegration of morale from that day. Any army – as Napoleon had memorably pointed out but seems temporarily to have forgotten – marches on its stomach. And Lieutenant Albrecht von Muraldt of IV Corps’ 4th Bavarian Chevaulegers is shocked to notice how quickly the spreading food shortage is affecting obedience and military discipline:
‘Men were beginning to leave the ranks without permission, and anyone who wasn’t present when the others bivouacked was hardly asked after when leaving next morning. Yet this was only the beginning!’
Two days later Lieutenant Louis-Joseph Vionnet, also of the hitherto so well-disciplined Fusiliers-Grenadiers of the Young Guard, will be noting how
‘the habit of stealing was establishing itself in the army. From now on nothing was safe except what one wore on one’s own person. Men were taking portmanteaux from horses and pots off fires,’
placing Le Roy’s and Jacquet’s great iron cookpot in perpetual danger. Already men are withdrawing into the forest to eat such little bread as they still have left. Here and there a unit seems to be miraculously intact. From his carriage Mailly-Nesle admires a regiment of Portuguese light cavalry as it comes trotting across the fields. ‘Their excellent condition, the rested air of these men in chestnut brown uniforms, their handsome faces, serious and brown, provoked our admiration.’23 Only the exiguous Pion des Loches, it seems, is snug:
‘In the evenings we raised our tent. I undressed, I lay down on bearskins and there, in my sleeping-bag, covered by my fur, slept as soundly as at any bivouac. My servant Louvrier, a strong robust man, looked after my horses. Thanks to the precautions I’d taken at Moscow I had less to suffer from than anyone.’
Just outside Vereia the retreating army runs into Marshal Mortier’s two Young Guard divisions. They’d left Moscow, four-fifths of it in ashes, at 7 a.m. on 22 October, with orders to march for Borowsk via Vereia, after blowing up the Kremlin. Not until 11 p.m. that evening had the last unit left the city. While Mortier had been making his preparations something extraordinary had happened. Curious to see what was going on, General Winzingerode, the commander of the Russian forces north of the city, had taken it into his head to walk into it dressed in a civilian overcoat. Upon his trying to-chat up a post of the 5th Tirailleurs,24 its lieutenant, who’d had his wits about him, had arrested him despite his Vain attempt to save himself by pretending he’d come to parley and waving a white handkerchief,’ and sent him to Mortier. Winzingerode’s ADC, a Captain Narishkin, wondering what had become of his chief, had insisted on also being taken prisoner.
Mortier’s force consists of General Delaborde’s Young Guard division with its artillery, some sappers, a brigade of 500 cavalry who still have their mounts, and Carrière’s scratch brigade of 4,000 troopers who haven’t. As they join the column, Dr Heinrich von Roos of the 3rd Württemberg Chasseurs notes these provisional units are
‘armed like infantrymen with muskets from the Moscow arsenal. This armament was so little to their liking that when they saw the great disorder prevailing among us they threw away both muskets and ammunition and each went aside on his own, his portmanteau on his back and holding the ramrod in his hand like a stick, without any officer being able to prevent them.’
Just as Napoleon’s getting off his horse Winzingerode and Narishkin are brought before him. And instantly he’s anything but the calm self-possessed person Dedem had seen.The Emperor of the French has a long memory.
‘“Who are you?” he shouts at Winzingerode, unleashing on him all his frustration at the turn the campaign has taken:
‘“A man without a country! You’ve always been my personal enemy. You’ve fought with the Austrians against me, then asked to serve with the Russians. You’ve been one of the greatest perpetrators of this war.25 Yet you were born in the kingdom of Württemberg, in the states of the Confederation of the Rhine! You’re my subject! You aren’t an ordinary enemy, you’re a rebel, and I’ve the right to bring you before a court. Do you see this desolate countryside, Monsieur, these villages in flames? Who ought to be reproached with these disasters, who are they due to? To fifty adventurers like yourself, suborned by England, which has thrown them on the Continent. You’ve been taken with weapons in your hand. I’ve the right to have you shot!”’
Winzingerode tries to explain that since the French had anyway been on the verge of evacuating Moscow there’d been no point in further hostilities. His attempted parley had aimed at avoiding useless bloodshed and above all at preventing any further damage to the city. He denies he’s one of Napoleon’s subjects, not having been in his native country since he was a child. If he’s serving Tsar Alexander it’s out of personal devotion.
‘The more M. de Winzingerode tried to justify himself, the angrier the Emperor became, raising his voice so loud that even the picket could hear him.’
Present at the stormy interview are Caulaincourt, for four years ambassador at St Petersburg and explicitly against the war from the outset. The middle-aged Berthier, who’s beginning to have had enough of wars of any kind. And, at a more respectful distance, other staff officers.26
‘At first the officers of his entourage had withdrawn a little. Everyone was on tenterhooks. Glancing at each other, we could see in every eye the distress caused by this painful scene.’
Berthier, standing closest to his master, is most distressed of all, as the others can
‘see in his expression, and his remarks confirmed it when, on some pretext, he was able to join us. The Emperor called for the gendarmes to take M. de Winzingerode away. When no one passed on this order, he repeated it so loudly that the two men attached to the picket stepped forward. The Emperor then repeated to the prisoner some of the charges, adding that he deserved to be shot as a traitor.’
Stung by this word Winzingerode,
‘who’d been listening with eyes lowered to the ground, drew himself up, raised his head, and looking straight at the Emperor and those standing nearest to him, said loudly:
“As whatever you please, Sire – but not as a traitor!”
‘And walked away of his own accord, ahead of the guards, who kept their distance.’
Now Murat arrives on the scene and tries to calm his raging brother-in-law who’s
‘walking to and fro with nervous hurried steps, summoning now one of us, now another, to vent his anger. He met only with silence.’
Caulaincourt, who has witnessed many an imperial rage, has ‘never seen him so angry.’ Clearly Winzingerode’s life’s in danger. General Jean Rapp, Napoleon’s favourite ADC, ‘is sure he’d have been in despair if this order, obviously dictated in a furious rage, had been carried out’; and joins with others in begging him to postpone it. This only sets Napoleon off inveighing against the Russian nobility ‘which had dragged Alexander into making war:
‘“The weight of this war is going to fall on those who’ve provoked it. In the spring I’ll go to St Petersburg and throw that town into the Neva.”’
Berthier, ‘beside himself, sends an ADC to the headquarters élite gendarmes, ordering them to treat their prisoner with consideration. ‘Everyone,’ says de Ségur,27 ‘hastened to wait upon the captive general to reassure and condole with him.’ But neither Berthier nor Caulaincourt have
‘ever seen the Emperor so completely lose control of himself. A little way off we could see a fine large house. The Emperor sent two squadrons to sack and fire it, adding: “Since these barbarians like to burn their towns we must help them.”’
An action which strikes Caulaincourt as peculiarly shocking:
‘It was the only time I’d ever heard him give such an order. As a rule he tried to prevent such destruction as only harmed private interests or ruined private citizens. He returned to Vereia before nightfall. Not one inhabitant remained.’
To Bessières’ ADC Major Baudus, too, the scene has come as ‘one more proof that the Emperor perfectly realised the depths of the abyss to whose edge he’d let himself be drawn’. The wounded Rapp and all the staff are sorry for the ‘traitor’ and do what they can for him and for his loyal and self-sacrificing ADC. Narishkin, says Dedem, ‘was shown more consideration’.
Napoleon usually doesn’t give a fig for Berthier’s views – his job is simply to implement the commander-in-chief’s orders. But now even Berthier makes so bold as to point out that Winzingerode isn’t in fact one of the Emperor’s subjects. Together with Caulaincourt he urges Murat to have another word with him. By now Caulaincourt’s anyway becoming easier in his mind about the outcome ‘in proportion to the Emperor’s annoyance. Princes, like other men, have a conscience which bids them right the wrongs they’ve done.’ And by and by he’s sent for.
‘“Has the courier arrived?”’ Napoleon asks.
The question’s a good omen. Napoleon knows very well it’s still too early in the day,28 and is already ‘much quieter’. But still needs to vent his spleen. Winzingerode’s behaviour, Caulaincourt hastily agrees, has been ‘most irregular’; but surely His Majesty has ‘used his prisoner so sternly in words that no further punishment is needed?’ Won’t further severity only look like an act of personal act of malice against the Tsar, whose ADC Winzingerode is? Rulers, Caulaincourt makes so bold as to observe,
‘“have no need, after so many cannonballs have been exchanged, to come personally to grips with each other”.
‘The Emperor began to laugh, and affectionately pinched my ear, as was his habit when he tried to coax people.
‘“You’re right. But Winzingerode’s a bad character, a schemer, a secret agent of the London government and Alexander’s been at fault in making him his ADC”’
But he, Napoleon, won’t be equally at fault in treating him badly:
‘“I’d rather they’d captured a Russian. These foreigners in the service of the highest bidder are a poor catch. So it’s for Alexander’s sake you’re taking an interest in him? Well, well, we won’t do him any harm.”
‘The Emperor gave me a little tap on the cheek, his signal mark of affection. From the outset I’d seen he only wanted an excuse to go back on his words.’
And in fact Napoleon tells Caulaincourt to ‘try to persuade Narishkin to dine with us’. As for Winzingerode,
‘“I’ll send him to France, under a good escort, to prevent him from intriguing throughout Europe with three or four other firebrands of his sort.”’
At dinner Napoleon turns to Narishkin:
‘“What’s your name?”
‘“Narishkin,” the young officer replied.
‘“Narishkin! With a name like that one is too good to be adjutant to a defector.”’
‘This piece of rudeness upset us extremely,’ Rapp says, ‘and we did all we could to make the general overlook it.’ Still speaking to Narishkin, Napoleon tells him what an excellent moment it is for making an honourable peace, “the French army’s movement being in some sort a retreat”. Evidently he’s intending to send Narishkin to Alexander.
Was the calm feigned, and the rage a real explosion of fury and frustration? Or vice versa? ‘The trouble with Napoleon’, writes Caulaincourt, ‘was that he never for a moment stopped playing the great emperor.’ In what concerns Narishkin, he changes his mind. For next day both men are sent to the head of the column to set out for France with an officer and an élite gendarme. Caulaincourt, who’s already given Narishkin some money, sends his valet after him with one of his own overcoats, against the increasing cold.
In sharp contrast to the indiscipline prevailing among the 4,000 dismounted cavalry, Delaborde’s division is in good shape. But his well-educated interpreter Lieutenant Paul de Bourgoing is oddly hatted; having unaccountably lost his own hat on eve of quitting Moscow, he’s had to replace it with a doctor’s head-dress. With him he still has his faithful and enterprising servant Victor, the plucky 13-year-old Parisian street-urchin who’d so dearly have liked to enlist as a drummer-boy, but been found too puny of stature, and whom Bourgoing out of pure kindness had taken on as his ‘philistine’. Delaborde’s nature, too, is generous and hospitable. His little household has grown to include four French civilians from Moscow and two actresses from the French Theatre in Moscow. Also a painter named Lavanpierre, and a tutor (‘a learned grammarian’) named Lardillon. Mme. Anthony, one of the actresses, is sure she’ll never see France again, and is often in tears.29 ‘The day we left Vereia,’ Planat de la Faye goes on,
‘began our embarrassments caused by the quantity of useless vehicles encumbering the army. In the defiles the military police and artillery officers overturned and smashed several of these carriages to right and left of the road. Above all they were pitiless toward such sutlers’ wagons as didn’t belong to any regiment. One of them being overturned, a magnificent harp and books bound in morocco and gilded on the spines fell out, to a great burst of laughter from all present.’
