Part 30

On the 22d of November the army had a disagreeable march from Orcha to Borizoff, on a wide road skirted by a double row of large birch-trees, the snow having melted, and the mud being very deep. The weakest here found their graves; and those of our wounded who, in expectation of a continuance of the frost, had exchanged their wagons for sleighs, were left behind, and fell into the hands of the Cossacks.

It was during the early part of the march to Borizoff that the news of the fall of Minsk became generally known in the army. The leaders themselves now began to look around them with consternation; and, after witnessing such a succession of frightful spectacles their imagination depicted a still more fatal futurity. In their private conversation they did not hesitate to say that, "like Charles XII. in Russia, Napoleon had carried his army to Moscow only to destroy it."

Deploring, then, the rash obstinacy of the stay at Moscow, and the fatal hesitation at Malo-jaroslavetz, they proceeded to reckon up their losses. Since their departure from Moscow they had lost all their baggage, five hundred cannon, thirty-one standards, twenty-seven generals, forty thousand prisoners, and sixty thousand dead: all that remained were forty thousand unarmed stragglers and eight thousand effective soldiers.

With respect to the loss of Minsk the governor of that place had been negligently chosen. He was, it was said, one of those men who undertake everything, who promise everything, and who do nothing. On the 16th of November he lost that capital, and with it four thousand seven hundred sick, the warlike stores, and two million rations of provisions. It was five days since the news of this loss had reached Dombrowna, and the news of a still greater calamity came on the heels of it.

This same governor had retreated towards Borizoff. There he neglected to inform Oudinot, who was only at the distance of two marches, to come to his assistance; and failed to support Dombrowski, who made a hasty march thither: the result was that the latter was overpowered by the fire of the Russian artillery, which took him in flank, and, attacked by a force more than double his own, he was driven across the river, and out of the town as far as the Moscow road.

This disaster was wholly unexpected by Napoleon. Finally, when the emperor learned at Dombrowna the loss of Minsk, he had no suspicion that Borizoff was in such imminent danger, as when he passed the next day through Orcha he had the whole of his bridge-equipage burned.

It was on the day immediately subsequent to that fatal catastrophe, at the distance of three marches from Borizoff, and upon the high road, that an officer arrived and announced to Napoleon this fresh disaster. The emperor, striking the ground with his stick, and casting a furious look to heaven, pronounced these words: "Is it, then, written above that we shall now commit nothing but faults?"

Meanwhile Marshal Oudinot, who was already marching towards Minsk, totally ignorant of what had happened, halted on the 21st. In the middle of the night General Brownkowski arrived to announce to him his own defeat, as well as that of General Dombrowski; that Borizoff was taken, and that the Russians were following close at his heels.

In fact, every disaster which Napoleon could anticipate had occurred; the melancholy conformity, therefore, of his situation with that of the Swedish conqueror, threw his mind into such a state of agitation that his health became still more seriously affected than it had been at Malo-jaroslavetz. Among the expressions he made use of, loud enough to be overheard, was this: "See what happens when we heap faults on faults!"

His orders, however, displayed decision. Oudinot had just sent to inform him of his determination to overthrow Lambert: this he approved of, and he also urged him to make himself master of a passage across the Berezina, either above or below Borizoff. He was desirous that by the 24th the place for this passage should be fixed on and the preparations begun, and that he should be apprised of it, in order to make his march correspond. Far from thinking of making his escape through the midst of these three hostile armies, his only idea now was to beat Tchitchakoff and retake Minsk.

It is true that, eight hours afterward, in a second letter to the Duke of Reggio, he resigned himself to crossing the Berezina near Veselowo, and by retreating directly upon Wilna, by Vileika, to avoid the Russian admiral.

But on the 24th he learned that the passage could only be attempted near Studzianka; that at that spot the river was only fifty-four fathoms wide, and six feet deep; and that they would land on the opposite side in a marsh, under the fire of a commanding position strongly occupied by the enemy.

§ 21. March through the forest of Minsk; passage of the Berezina.

All hope of passing between the Russian armies was thus lost: driven by the armies of Kutusoff and Wittgenstein upon the Berezina, there was no alternative but to cross that river in the teeth of the army of Tchitchakoff, which lined its banks.

After having made his preparations, Napoleon plunged into the gloomy and immense forest of Minsk, in which there was only here and there an open spot surrounding some wretched hamlet or single habitation. The noise of Wittgenstein's artillery filled it with its echoes. The Russian general came rushing from the north upon the right flank of our expiring column, and he brought back with him the winter which had quitted us at the same time with Kutusoff. The news of his threatening march accelerated our steps, and our motley array of from forty to fifty thousand men, women, and children hurried through the forest as rapidly as their weakness and the slipperiness of the ground, from the frost again setting in, would allow.

These forced marches, commenced before daylight, and not terminating until after its close, dispersed all who had previously been together. They lost themselves in the double darkness of the forest and of the night. They halted in the evening, and resumed their march in the morning, in obscurity, at random, and without hearing the signal: the dissolution of the remains of the corps was now completed; all were mixed and confounded together.

In this last stage of helplessness and confusion, as we were approaching Borizoff, we heard loud cries before us. Some rushed forward, fancying it was an attack. It was Victor's army, which had been feebly driven back by Wittgenstein to the right side of our road, where it remained waiting for us. Still, quite complete and full of animation, it received the emperor, as soon as he made his appearance, with the customary but now long-forgotten acclamations.

Of our disasters it had heard nothing: they had been carefully concealed even from its leaders. When, therefore, instead of that grand column which had conquered Moscow, its soldiers perceived behind Napoleon only a train of spectres covered with tattered vestments of every kind, women's pelisses, pieces of carpet, or dirty cloaks, half burned and riddled by the fires, and with nothing but rags on their feet, their consternation was extreme. They seemed terrified at the sight of those unfortunate soldiers, as they defiled before them, with emaciated frames, faces black with dirt, and hideous bristly beards, unarmed, shameless, marching confusedly, with their heads bent, and their eyes fixed on the ground and silent, like a troop of captives.

But what astonished them more than all was to see the number of generals and officers of every grade, scattered about and insulated, seemingly only occupied about themselves, and thinking of nothing but to save the wrecks of their property or their persons: they were marching pell-mell with the soldiers, who did not notice them, to whom they had no longer any commands to give, and of whom they had nothing to expect, all ties between them being dissolved, and all distinctions of rank obliterated by the common misery.

It was, indeed, merely the shadow of an army, but it was the shadow of the Grand Army. It felt conscious that nature alone had vanquished it. The presence of Napoleon animated it. To him it had long been accustomed to look, not for its means of support, but to lead it to victory. This was its first unfortunate campaign, and it had had so many fortunate ones: it only required to be able to follow him. He alone who had elevated his soldiers so high, and now sunk them so low, was yet able to save them. He was still, therefore, cherished in the heart of his army, like hope in the heart of man.

Thus, amid so many beings who might have reproached him with their misfortunes, he marched on without the least fear, speaking to one and all without affectation, certain of being respected as long as glory could command respect. Knowing perfectly that he belonged to us as much as we to him, his renown being, as it were, common national property, we should have sooner turned our arms against ourselves (which was the case with many), as being a minor suicide, than against him.

Some of the men fell and died at his feet; and, though they were in the most frightful delirium, their sufferings never gave its wanderings the turn of reproach, but of entreaty. And in fact, did not he share the common danger? Who of them all risked so much as he? Who had suffered the greatest loss in this disaster?

If any imprecations were ever uttered, it was not in his presence; for it seemed that, of all misfortunes, that of incurring his displeasure was still the greatest: so rooted was their confidence in, and their submission to, that man who had subjected the world to them; whose genius, hitherto uniformly victorious and invincible, had assumed the place of their free-will; and who, having had so long in his hands the book of pensions, of rank, and of history, had found wherewithal to satisfy not only covetous spirits, but also every generous heart.

At the close of the night of the 25th of November, Napoleon made them sink the first trestle in the muddy bed of the Berezina River. But to crown our misfortunes, the rising of the waters had made the traces of the ford entirely disappear. It required the most incredible efforts on the part of our unfortunate engineers, who were plunged in the water up to their mouths, and had to contend with the floating pieces of ice which were carried along by the stream. Many of them perished from the cold, or were drowned by the cakes of ice being violently driven against them by the current and wind.

On the 27th, Napoleon, with about five thousand guards, and Ney's corps, now reduced to six hundred men, crossed the Berezina about two o'clock in the afternoon: he posted himself in reserve to Oudinot, and secured the outlet from the bridges against the efforts of the Russians.

He had been preceded by a crowd of baggage and stragglers, and numbers of them continued to cross the river after him as long as daylight lasted.

But Partouneaux with his division was not so fortunate. At every point where he attempted to pass, he encountered the enemy's fires, and was obliged to turn back: in this way he wandered about for several hours altogether at random, in plains covered with snow, in the midst of a violent tempest. At every step he saw his soldiers pierced through by the cold, and exhausted with hunger and fatigue, falling half dead into the hands of the Russian cavalry, who pursued him without intermission.

This unfortunate general was still struggling with the heavens, with men, and with his own despair, when he felt even the ground giving way under his feet. In fact, deceived by the snow, he was marching upon a lake, which not being frozen sufficiently hard to bear him, he had fallen in and was on the point of being drowned, and then only did he yield and give up his arms.