Part 17

The night was passed in cruel suspense, but being the prey of sorrows of so many kinds the French could hardly pay due attention to the many new ones which presented themselves at every moment. The silence which reigned on the morning of the 28th. indicated the catastrophe of the division Partouneaux.

The firing now began on the two sides of the Beresina, on the right shore against the troops that had crossed, on the left against those covering the passage of the rear of the army. From this moment on nothing was thought of but fight. The cannonade and fusillade soon became extremely violent, and Napoleon, on horseback, incessantly riding from one point to another, assumed that Oudinot resisted Tchitchakoff while Eblé continued to care for the bridges, and that Victor, who was fighting Wittgenstein, was not thrown into the icy floods of the Beresina together with the masses which had not yet crossed.

Although the firing was terrible on all sides and thousands were killed on this lugubrious field; the French resisted on both banks of the river.

For the description of this battle I desire to refer to Thiers’ great work. Taking all circumstances into consideration, it did the greatest honor to Napoleon’s guns, to the valor of his generals and of his soldiers.

The confusion was frightful among the masses that had neglected to cross in time, and those who had arrived too late for the opportunity. Many, ignoring that the first bridge was reserved for pedestrians and horsemen, the second for wagons, crowded with delirious impatience upon the second bridge. The pontooneers on guard at the entrance of the bridge to the right were ordering the vehicles to the one on the left, which was 600 feet farther down. This precaution was an absolute necessity, because the bridge to the right could not endure the weight of the wagons. Those who were directed by the pontooneers to go to the other bridge had the greatest difficulty to pass through the compact masses pressing and pushing to enter the structure. A terrible struggle! Opposing currents of people paralyzed all progress. The bullets of the enemy, striking into this dense crowd, produced fearful furrows and cries of terror from the fugitives; women with children, many on wagons, added to the horror. All pressed, all pushed; the stronger ones trampled on those who had lost their foothold, and killed many of the latter. Men on horseback were crushed, together with their horses, many of the animals becoming unmanageable, shot forward, kicked, reared, turned into the crowd and gained a little space by throwing people down into the river; but soon the space filled up again, and the mass of people was as dense as before.

This pressing forward and backward, the cries, the bullets striking into the helpless crowd, presented an atrocious scene—the climax of that forever odious and senseless expedition of Napoleon.

The excellent General Eblé, whose heart broke at this spectacle, tried in vain to establish a little order. Placing himself at the head of the bridge he addressed the multitude; but it was only by means of the bayonet that at last some improvement was brought about, and some women, children, and wounded were saved. Some historians have stated that the French themselves fired cannon shots into the crowd, but this is not mentioned by Thiers. This panic was the cause that more than half the number of those perished who otherwise could have crossed. Many threw themselves, or were pushed, into the water and drowned. And this terrible conflict among the masses having lasted all day, far from diminishing, it became more horrible with the progress of the battle between Victor and Wittgenstein. The description of this battle I omit, referring again to Thiers, confining myself to give some figures. Of 700 to 800 men of General Fournier’s cavalry hardly 300 survived; of Marshal Victor’s infantry, hardy 5 thousand. Of all these brave men, mostly Dutchmen, Germans, and Polanders, who had been sacrificed there was quite a number of wounded who might have been saved, but who had perished for want of all means of transportation. The Russians lost 10 thousand to 11 thousand.

This double battle on the two shores of the Beresina is one of the most glorious in the history of France; 28 thousand against 72 thousand Russians. These 28 thousand could have been taken or annihilated to the last man, and it was almost a miracle that even a part of the army escaped this disaster.

With nightfall some calm came over this place of carnage and confusion.

On the next morning Napoleon had to recommence, this time not to retreat, but to flee; he had to wrest from the enemy the 5 thousand men of Marshal Victor’s corps, Victor’s artillery and as many as possible of those unfortunates who had not employed the two days by crossing. Napoleon ordered Marshal Victor to cross during the night with his corps and with all his artillery, and to take with him as many as possible of the disbanded and of the refugees who were still on that other side of the river.

Here we now learn of a singular flux and reflux of the frightened masses. While the cannon had roared, every one wanted to cross but could not, now when with nightfall the firing had ceased they did not think any more of the danger of hesitation, not of the cruel lesson which they had learned during the day. They only wanted to keep away from the scene of horror which the crossing of the bridge had presented. It was a great task to force these unfortunates to cross the bridges before they were set on fire, a measure which was an absolute necessity and which was to be executed on the next morning.

The first work for Eblé’s pontooneers was now to clear the avenues of the bridges from the mass of the dead, men and horses, of demolished wagons, and of all sorts of impediments. This task could be accomplished only in part; the mass of cadavers was too great for the time given for the removal of all of them, and those who crossed had to walk over flesh and blood.

In the night, from 9 o’clock to midnight, Marshal Victor crossed the Beresina, thereby exposing himself to the enemy, who, however, was too tired to think of fighting. He brought his artillery over the left bridge, his infantry over the right one, and with the exception of the wounded and two pieces of artillery, all his men and all his material safely reached the other side. The crossing accomplished, he erected a battery to hold the Russians in check and to prevent them from crossing the bridges.

There remained several thousand stragglers and fugitives on this side of the Beresina who could have crossed during the night but had refused to do so. Napoleon had given orders to destroy the bridges at daybreak and had sent word to General Eblé and Marshal Victor to employ all means in order to hasten the passage of those unfortunates. General Eblé, accompanied by some officers, himself went to their bivouacs and implored them to flee, emphasizing that he was going to destroy the bridges. But it was in vain; lying comfortably on straw or branches around great fires, devouring horse meat, they were afraid of the crowding on the bridge during the night, they hesitated to give up a sure bivouac for an uncertain one, they feared that the frost, which was very severe, would kill them in their enfeebled condition.

Napoleon’s orders to General Eblé was to destroy the bridges at 7 o’clock in the morning of November 29th., but this noble man, as humane as he was brave, hesitated. He had been awake that night, the sixth of these vigils in succession, incessantly trying to accelerate the passing of the bridge; with daybreak, however, there was no need any more to stimulate the unfortunates, they all were only too anxious now. They all ran when the enemy became visible on the heights.

Eblé had waited till 8 o’clock when the order for the destruction of the bridges was repeated to him, and in sight of the approaching enemy it was his duty not to lose one moment. However, trusting to the artillery of Victor, he still tried to save some people. His soul suffered cruelly during this time of hesitation to execute an order the necessity of which he knew only too well. Finally, having waited until almost 9 o’clock when the enemy approached on the double quick, he decided with broken heart, turning his eyes away from the frightful scene, to set fire to the structures. Those unfortunates who were on the bridges threw themselves into the water, every one made a supreme effort to escape the Cossacks or captivity, which latter they feared more than death.

The Cossacks came up galloping, thrusting their lances into the midst of the crowd; they killed some, gathered the others, and drove them forward, like a herd of sheep, toward the Russian army. It is not exactly known if there were 6 thousand, 7 thousand or 8 thousand individuals, men, women, and children, who were taken by the Cossacks.

The army was profoundly affected by this spectacle and nobody more so than General Eblé who, in devoting himself to the salvation of all, could well say that he was the savior of all who had not perished or been taken prisoner in the days of the Beresina. Of the 50 thousand, armed or unarmed, who had crossed there was not a single one who did not owe his life and liberty to him and his pontooneers. But the 400 pontooneers who had worked in the water, paid with their lives for this noblest deed in the history of wars; they all died within a short time. General Eblé survived his act of bravery only three weeks; he died in Koenigsberg on the 21st. day of December, 1812.

This is an incomplete sketch of the immortal event of the Beresina, full of psychological interest and therefore fit to be inserted in the medical history of Napoleon’s campaign in Russia.

To a miraculous accident, the arrival of Corbineau, the noble devotedness of Eblé, the desperate resistance of Victor and his soldiers, to the energy of Oudinot, Ney, Legrand, Maison, Zayonchek, Doumerc, and, finally, to his own sure and profound decision, his recognition of the true steps to be taken, Napoleon owed the possibility that he could escape after a bloody scene, the most humiliating, the most crushing disaster.

TWO EPISODES

Surgeon Huber of the Wuerttembergians, writes to his friend, Surgeon Henri de Roos, who settled in Russia after the campaign of 1812, how he crossed the Beresina, and in this connection he describes the following dreadful episode:

“A young woman of twenty-five, the wife of a French colonel killed a few days before in one of the engagements, was near me, within a short distance of the bridge we were to cross. Oblivious of all that went on about her, she seemed wholly engrossed in her daughter, a beautiful child of four, that she held in the saddle before her. She made several unsuccessful attempts to cross the bridge and was driven back every time, at which she seemed overwhelmed with blank despair. She did not weep; she would gaze heavenward, then fix her eyes upon her daughter, and once I heard her say: ‘O God, how wretched I am, I cannot even pray!’ Almost at the same moment a bullet struck her horse and another one penetrated her left thigh above the knee. With the deliberation of mute despair she took up the child that was crying, kissed it again and again; then, using the blood-stained garter removed from her fractured limb, she strangled the poor little thing and sat down with it, wrapped in her arms and hugged close to her bosom, beside her fallen horse. Thus she awaited her end, without uttering a single word, and before long she was trampled down by the riders making for the bridge.”

The great surgeon Larrey tells how he nearly perished at the crossing of the Beresina, how he went over the bridge twice to save his equipment and surgical instruments, and how he was vainly attempting to break through the crowd on the third trip, when, at the mention of his name, every one proffered assistance, and he was carried along by soldier after soldier to the end of the bridge.

He has related the incident in a letter to his wife, dated from Leipzig, March 11th., 1813. “Ribes,” says he—Ribes was one of Napoleon’s physicians—“was right when he said that in the midst of the army, and especially of the Imperial guard, I could not lose my life. Indeed, I owe my life to the soldiers. Some of them flew to my rescue when the Cossacks surrounded me and would have killed or taken me prisoner. Others hastened to lift me and help me on when I sank in the snow from physical exhaustion. Others, again, seeing me suffer from hunger, gave me such provisions as they had; while as soon as I joined their bivouac they would all make room and cover me with straw or with their own clothes.”

At Larrey’s name, all the soldiers would rise and cheer with a friendly respect.

“Any one else in my place,” writes Larrey further, “would have perished on the bridge of the Beresina, crossing it as I was doing, for the third time and at the most dangerous moment. But no sooner did they recognize me than they grasped me with a vigorous hold, and sent me along from hand to hand, like a bundle of clothes, to the end of the bridge.”

WILNA