A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4

W >> Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks >> Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4




Russia had, meanwhile, made preparations for a war unanticipated by
Napoleon. As early as 1811, a great Russian army stood ready for the
invasion of Poland, and might, as there were at that time but few
French troops in Germany, easily have advanced as far as the Elbe. It
remained, nevertheless, in a state of inactivity.[2] Napoleon
instantly prepared for war and fortified Dantzig. His continual
proposals of peace, ever unsatisfactory to the ambition of the czar,
remaining at length unanswered, he declared war. The Rhenish
confederation followed as usual in his train, and Austria, from an
interested motive, the hope of regaining in the East by Napoleon's
assistance all she had lost by opposing him in the West, or that of
regaining her station as the third European power when the resources
of the two ruling powers, whose coalition had threatened her
existence, had been exhausted by war. Prussia also followed the eagles
of Napoleon: the Hardenberg party, with a view of conciliating him,
and, like the Rhenish confederation, from motives of gain: the
_Tugendbund_, which predominated in the army, with silent but
implacable hate.

In the spring of 1812, Napoleon, after leaving a sufficient force to
prosecute the war with activity in Spain and to guard France, Italy,
and Germany,[3] led half a million men to the Russian frontiers.
Before taking the field, he convoked all the princes of Germany to
Dresden, where he treated them with such extreme insolence as even to
revolt his most favored and warmest partisans. Tears were seen to
start in ladies' eyes, while men bit their lips with rage at the petty
humiliations and affronts heaped on them by their powerful but
momentary lord. The empress of Austria[4] and the king of Prussia[5]
appear, on this occasion, to have felt this most acutely.

For the first time--an event unknown in the history of the world--the
whole of Germany was reduced to submission. Napoleon, greater than
conquering Attila, who took the field at the head of one-half of
Germany against the other, dragged the whole of Germany in his train.
The army led by him to the steppes of Russia was principally composed
of German troops, who were so skilfully mixed up with the French as
not to be themselves aware of their numerical superiority. The right
wing, composed of thirty thousand Austrians under Schwarzenberg, was
destined for the invasion of Volhynia; while the left wing, consisting
of twenty thousand Prussians under York and several thousand French,
under the command of Marshal Macdonald, was ordered to advance upon
the coasts of the Baltic and without loss of time to besiege Riga. The
centre or main body consisted of the troops of the Rhenish
confederation, more or less mixed up with French; of thirty-eight
thousand Bavarians under Wrede and commanded by St. Cyr; of sixteen
thousand Wurtembergers under Scheeler, over whom Marshal Ney was
allotted the chief command; single regiments, principally cavalry,
were drawn off in order more thoroughly to intermix the Germans with
the French; of seventeen thousand Saxons under Reynier; of eighteen
thousand Westphalians under Vandamme; also of Hessians, Badeners,
Frankforters, Wurzburgers, Nassauers, in short, of contingents
furnished by each of the confederated states. The Swiss were mostly
concentrated under Oudinot. The Dutch, Hanseatic, Flemish, in fine,
all the Germans on the left bank of the Rhine, were at that time
crammed among the French troops. Upward of two hundred thousand
Germans, at the lowest computation, marched against Russia, a number
far superior to that of the French in the army, the remainder of which
was made up by several thousand Italians, Portuguese, and Spaniards,
who had been pressed into the service.[6]

The Prussians found themselves in the most degraded position. Their
army, weak as it was in numbers, was placed under the command of a
French general. The Prussian fortresses, with the exception of
Colberg, Graudenz, Schweidnitz, Neisse, and Glatz, were already
garrisoned with French troops, or, like Pillau near Koenigsberg, newly
occupied by them. In Berlin, the French had unlimited sway. Marshal
Augereau was stationed with sixty thousand men in Northern Germany for
the purpose of keeping that part of the country, and more particularly
Prussia, in check to Napoleon's rear; the Danish forces also stood in
readiness to support him in case of necessity. Napoleon's entire army
moreover marched through Prussia and completely drained that country
of its last resources. Napoleon deemed it unnecessary to take measures
equal in severity toward Austria, where the favor of the court seemed
to be secured by his marriage, and the allegiance of the army by the
presence of Schwarzenberg, who neither rejected nor returned his
confidence. A rich compensation was, by a secret compact, secured to
Austria in case the cession of Galicia should be necessitated by the
expected restoration of the kingdom of Poland, with which Napoleon had
long flattered the Poles, who, misled by his promises, served him with
the greatest enthusiasm. But, notwithstanding the removal of the only
obstacle, the jealousy of Austria in regard to Galicia, by this secret
compact, his promises remained unfulfilled, and he took possession of
the whole of Poland without restoring her ancient independence. The
petitions addressed to him on this subject by the Poles received
dubious replies, and he pursued toward his unfortunate dupes his
ancient system of dismembering and intermingling nations, of
tolerating no national unity. Napoleon's principal motive, however,
was his expectation of compelling the emperor by a well-aimed blow to
conclude peace, and of forming with him an alliance upon still more
favorable terms against the rest of the European powers. The
friendship of Russia was of far more import to him than all the
enthusiasm of the Poles.

The deep conviction harbored by Napoleon of his irresistible power led
him to repay every service and to regard every antagonist with
contempt. Confident of victory, he deviated from the strict military
discipline he had at one time enforced and of which he had given an
example in his own person, dragged in his train a multitude of useless
attendants fitted but for pomp and luxury, permitted his marshals and
generals to do the same, and an incredible number of private
carriages, servants, women, etc., to follow in the rear of the army,
to hamper its movements, create confusion, and aid in consuming the
army stores, which being, moreover, merely provided for a short
campaign, speedily became insufficient for the maintenance of the
enormous mass. Even in Eastern Prussia, numbers of the soldiery were
constrained by want to plunder the villages.--On the 24th of June,
1812, Napoleon crossed the Niemen, the Russian frontier, not far from
Kowno. The season was already too far advanced. It may be that,
deceived by the mildness of the winter of 1806 to 1807, he imagined it
possible to protract the campaign without peril to himself until the
winter months. No enemy appeared to oppose his progress. Barclay de
Tolly,[7] the Russian commander-in-chief, pursued the system followed
by the Scythians against Darius, and, perpetually retiring before the
enemy, gradually drew him deep into the dreary and deserted steppes.
This plan originated with Scharnhorst, by whom General Lieven was
advised not to hazard an engagement until the winter, and to turn a
deaf ear to every proposal of peace.[8] General Lieven, on reaching
Barclay's headquarters, took Colonel Toll, a German, Barclay's right
hand, and Lieutenant-Colonel Clausewitz, also a German, afterward
noted for his strategical works, into his confidence. General Pfull,
another German, at that time high in the emperor's confidence, and
almost all the Russian generals opposed Scharnhorst's plan and
continued to advance with a view of giving battle; but, on Napoleon's
appearance at the head of an army greatly their superior in number
before the Russians had been able to concentrate their forces, they
were naturally compelled to retire before him, and, on the prevention,
for some weeks, of the junction of a newly-levied Russian army under
Prince Bragation with the forces under Barclay, owing to the rapidity
of Napoleon's advance, Scharnhorst's plan was adopted as the only one
feasible.

Napoleon, in the hope of overtaking the Russians and of compelling
them to give battle, pushed onward by forced marches; the supplies
were unable to follow, and numbers of the men and horses sank from
exhaustion owing to over-fatigue, heat, and hunger.[9] On the arrival
of Napoleon in Witebst, of Schwarzenberg in Volhynia, of the Prussians
before Riga, the army might have halted, reconquered Poland have been
organized, the men put into winter quarters, the army have again taken
the field early in the spring, and the conquest of Russia have been
slowly but surely completed. But Napoleon had resolved upon
terminating the war in one rapid campaign, upon defeating the
Russians, seizing their metropolis, and dictating terms of peace, and
incessantly pursued his retreating opponent, whose footsteps were
marked by the flames of the cities and villages and by the devastated
country to their rear. The first serious opposition was made at
Smolensko,[10] whence the Russians, however, speedily retreated after
setting the city on fire. On the same day, the Bavarians, who had
diverged to one side during their advance, had a furious encounter--in
which General Deroy, formerly distinguished for his services in the
Tyrol, was killed--at Poloczk with a body of Russian troops under
Wittgenstein. The Bavarians remained stationary in this part of the
country for the purpose of watching the movements of that general,
while Napoleon, careless of the peril with which he was threatened by
the approach of winter and by the multitude of enemies gathering to
his rear, advanced with the main body of the grand army from Smolensko
across the wasted country upon Moscow, the ancient metropolis of the
Russian empire.

Russia, at that time engaged in a war with Turkey, whose frontiers
were watched by an immense army under Kutusow, used her utmost
efforts, in which she was aided by England, to conciliate the Porte in
order to turn the whole of her forces against Napoleon. By a
master-stroke of political intrigue,[11] the Porte, besides concluding
peace at Bucharest on the 28th of May, ceded the province of
Bessarabia (not Moldavia and Wallachia) to Russia. A Russian army
under Tschitschakow was now enabled to drive the Austrians out of
Volhynia, while a considerable force under Kutusow joined Barclay. Had
the Russians at this time hazarded an engagement, their defeat was
certain. Moscow could not have been saved. Barclay consequently
resolved not to come to an engagement, but to husband his forces and
to attack the French during the winter. The intended surrender of
Moscow without a blow was, nevertheless, deeply resented as a national
disgrace; the army and the people[12] raised a clamor, the venerable
Kutusow was nominated commander-in-chief, and, taking up a position on
the little river Moskwa near Borodino, about two days' journey from
Moscow, a bloody engagement took place there on the 7th of September,
in which Napoleon, in order to spare his guards, neglected to follow
up his advantage with his usual energy and allowed the defeated
Russians, whom he might have totally annihilated, to escape. Napoleon
triumphed; but at what a price! After a fearful struggle, in which he
lost forty thousand men in killed and wounded,[13] the latter of whom
perished almost to a man, owing to want and neglect.[14]

Moscow was now both defenceless and void of inhabitants. Napoleon
traversed this enormous city, containing two hundred and ninety-five
churches and fifteen hundred palaces rising from amid a sea of
inferior dwellings, and took possession of the residence of the czars,
the 14th of November, 1812. The whole city was, however, deserted, and
scarcely had the French army taken up its quarters in it than flames
burst from the empty and closely shut-up houses, and, ere long, the
whole of the immense city became a sea of fire and was reduced, before
Napoleon's eyes, to ashes. Every attempt to extinguish the flames
proved unavailing. Rostopchin, the commandant of Moscow, had,
previously to his retreat, put combustible materials, which were
ignited on the entrance of the French by men secreted for that
purpose, into the houses.[15] A violent wind aided the work of
destruction. The patriotic sacrifice was performed, nor failed in its
object. Napoleon, instead of peace and plenty, merely found ashes in
Moscow.

Instead of pursuing the defeated Russians to Kaluga, where, in
pursuance of Toll's first laid-down plan, they took up a position
close upon the flank of the French and threatened to impede their
retreat; instead of taking up his winter quarters in the fertile South
or of quickly turning and fixing himself in Lithuania in order to
collect reinforcements for the ensuing year, Napoleon remained in a
state of inaction at Moscow until the 19th of October, in expectation
of proposals of peace from Alexander. The terms of peace offered by
him on his part to the Russians did not even elicit a reply. His
cavalry, already reduced to a great state of exhaustion, were, in the
beginning of October, surprised before the city of Tarutino and
repulsed with considerable loss. This at length decided Napoleon upon
marching upon Kaluga, but the moment for success had already passed.
The reinforced and inspirited Russians made such a desperate
resistance at Malo-Jaroslawez that he resolved to retire by the
nearest route, that by which he had penetrated up the country, marked
by ashes and pestilential corpses, into Lithuania. Winter had not yet
set in, and his ranks were already thinned by famine.[16] Kutusow,
with the main body of the Russian army, pursued the retreating French
and again overtook them at Wiazma, the 3d November. Napoleon's hopes
now rested on the separate _corps d'armée_ left to his rear on his
advance upon Moscow, but they were, notwithstanding the defeat of
Wittgenstein's corps by the Bavarians under Wrede, kept in check by
fresh Russian armies and exposed to all the horrors of winter.[17] In
Volhynia, Schwarzenberg had zealously endeavored to spare his
troops,[18] and had, by his retreat toward the grandduchy of Warsaw,
left Tschitschakow at liberty to turn his arms against Napoleon,
against whom Wittgenstein also advanced in the design of blocking up
his route, while Kutusow incessantly assailed his flank and rear. On
the 6th of November, the frost suddenly set in. The horses died by
thousands in a single night; the greater part of the cavalry was
consequently dismounted, and it was found necessary to abandon part of
the booty and artillery. A deep snow shortly afterward fell and
obstructed the path of the fugitive army. The frost became more and
more rigorous; but few of the men had sufficient strength left to
continue to carry their arms and to cover the flight of the rest. Most
of the soldiers threw away their arms and merely endeavored to
preserve life. Napoleon's grand army was scattered over the boundless
snow-covered steppes, whose dreary monotony was solely broken by some
desolate half-burned village. Gaunt forms of famine, wan, hollow-eyed,
wrapped in strange garments of misery, skins, women's clothes, etc.,
and with long-grown beards, dragged their faint and weary limbs along,
fought for a dead horse whose flesh was greedily torn from the
carcass, murdered each other for a morsel of bread, and fell one after
the other in the deep snow, never again to rise. Bones of frozen
corpses lay each morn around the dead ashes of the night fires.[19]
Numbers were seen to spring, with a horrid cry of mad exultation, into
the flaming houses. Numbers fell into the hands of the Russian boors,
who stripped them naked and chased them through the snow. Smolensko
was at length reached, but the loss of the greater part of the cannon,
the want of ammunition and provisions, rendered their stay in that
deserted and half-consumed city impossible. The flight was continued,
the Russians incessantly pursuing and harassing the worn-out troops,
whose retreat was covered by Ney with all the men still under arms.
Cut off at Smolensko, he escaped almost by miracle, by creeping during
the night along the banks of the Dnieper and successively repulsing
the several Russian corps that threw themselves in his way.[20] A thaw
now took place, and the Beresina, which it was necessary to cross, was
full of drift-ice, its banks were slippery and impassable, and
moreover commanded by Tschitschakow's artillery, while the roar of
cannon to the rear announced Wittgenstein's approach. Kutusow had this
time failed to advance with sufficient rapidity, and Napoleon, the
river to his front and enclosed between the Russian armies, owed his
escape to the most extraordinary good luck. The _corps d'armée_ under
Oudinot and Victor, that had been left behind on his advance upon
Moscow, came at the moment of need with fresh troops to his aid.
Tschitschakow quitted the bank at the spot where Napoleon intended to
make the passage of the Beresina under an idea of the attempt being
made at another point. Napoleon instantly threw two bridges across the
stream, and all the able-bodied men crossed in safety. At the moment
when the bridges, that had several times given way, were choked up by
the countless throng bringing up the rear, Wittgenstein appeared and
directed his heavy artillery upon the motionless and unarmed crowd.
Some regiments, forming the rearguard, fell, together with all still
remaining on the other side of the river, into the hands of the
Russians.

The fugitive army was, after this fearful day, relieved, but the
temperature again fell to twenty-seven degrees below zero, and the
stoutest hearts and frames sank. On the 5th of December, Napoleon,
placing himself in a sledge, hurried in advance of his army, nay,
preceded the news of his disaster, in order at all events to insure
his personal safety and to pass through Germany before measures could
be taken for his capture.[21] His fugitive army shortly afterward
reached Wilna, but was too exhausted to maintain that position.
Enormous magazines, several prisoners, and the rest of the booty,
besides six million francs in silver money, fell here into the hands
of the Russians. Part of the fugitives escaped to Dantzig, but few
crossed the Oder; the Saxons under Reynier were routed and dispersed
in a last engagement at Calisch; Poniatowsky and the Poles retired to
Cracow on the Austrian frontier, as it were, protected by
Schwarzenberg, who remained unassailed by the Russians, and whose
neutrality was, not long afterward, formally recognized.

The Prussians, who had been, meanwhile, occupied with the unsuccessful
siege of Riga, and who, like the Austrians, had comparatively
husbanded their strength,[22] were now the only hope of the fugitive
French. The troops under Macdonald, accordingly, received orders to
cover the retreat of the grand army, but York, instead of obeying,
concluded a neutral treaty with the Russians commanded by Diebitsch of
Silesia and remained stationary in Eastern Prussia. The king of
Prussia, at that time still at Berlin and in the power of the French,
publicly[23] disapproved of the step taken by his general,[24] who
was, on the evacuation of Berlin by the French, as publicly rewarded.

The immense army of the conqueror of the world was totally
annihilated. Of those who entered Moscow scarcely twenty thousand, of
the half million of men who crossed the Russian frontier but eighty
thousand, returned.


[Footnote 1: Vide Bignon.]

[Footnote 2: From a letter of Count Minister in Hormayr's Sketches of
Life, it appears that Russia still cherished the hope of great
concessions being made by Napoleon in order to avoid war and was
therefore still reserved in her relations with England and the
Prussian patriots.]

[Footnote 3: French troops garrisoned German fortresses and
perpetually passed along the principal roads, which were for that
purpose essentially improved by Napoleon. In 1810, a great part of the
town of Eisenach was destroyed by the bursting of some French
powder-carts that were carelessly brought through, and by which great
numbers of people were killed.]

[Footnote 4: Who was far surpassed in splendor by her stepdaughter of
France.]

[Footnote 5: Segur relates that he was received politely but with
distant coolness by Napoleon. There is said to have been question
between them concerning the marriage of the crown prince of Prussia
with one of Napoleon's nieces, and of an incorporation of the still
unconquered Russian provinces on the Baltic, Livonia, Courland, and
Esthonia, with Prussia. All was, however, empty show. Napoleon hoped
by the rapidity of his successes to constrain the emperor of Russia to
conclude not only peace, but a still closer alliance with France, in
which case it was as far from his intention to concede the
above-mentioned provinces to Prussia as to emancipate the Poles.]

[Footnote 6: Napoleon said at that time to a Russian, "Si vous perdez
cinq Russes, ne perds qu un Francais et quatre cochons."]

[Footnote 7: This general, on the opening of the war, published a
proclamation to the Germans, summoning them to throw off the yoke of
Napoleon.--_Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 327_. Napoleon replied with, "Whom
are you addressing? There are no Germans, there are only Austrians,
Prussians, Bavarians, etc."--_All. Zeitung, No. 228._]

[Footnote 8: Vide Clausewitz's Works.]

[Footnote 9: At each encampment the men were left in such numbers in
hastily erected hospitals that, of thirty-eight thousand Bavarians,
for instance, but ten thousand, of sixteen thousand Würtembergers, but
thirteen hundred, reached Smolensko.]

[Footnote 10: The Würtembergers distinguished themselves here by
storming the faubourgs and the bridges across the Dnieper.]

[Footnote 11: The Greek prince, Moruzi, who at that time conducted
Turkish diplomacy, accepted a bribe, and concluded peace in the
expectation of becoming Prince of Moldavia and Wallachia. Sultan
Mahmud refusing to ratify this disgraceful treaty, gold was showered
upon the Turkish army, which suddenly dispersed, and the deserted
sultan was compelled to yield. Moruzi was deprived of his head, but
the Russians had gained their object. It must, moreover, be considered
that Napoleon was regarded with distrust by the Porte, against which
he had fought in Egypt, which he had afterward enticed into a war with
Russia, and had, by the alliance formed at Erfurt with that power,
abandoned.]

[Footnote 12: Colonel Toll was insulted during the discussion by
Prince Bragation for the firmness with which he upheld Scharnhorst's
plan, and avoided hazarding a useless engagement. Prince Bragation was
killed in the battle.]

[Footnote 13: A Russian redoubt, the key of the field of battle, was
taken and again lost. A Würtemberg regiment instantly pushed through
the fugitive French, retook the redoubt and retained possession of it.
It also, on this occasion, saved the life of the king of Naples and
delivered him out of the hands of the Russians, who had already taken
him prisoner.--_Ten Campaigns of the Wurtembergers._]

[Footnote 14: Everything was wanting, lint, linen, even necessary
food. The wounded men lay for days and weeks under the open sky and
fed upon the carcasses of horses.]

[Footnote 15: This combustible matter had been prepared by Schmid, the
Dutchman, under pretext of preparing an enormous balloon from which
fire was to be scattered upon the French army.]

[Footnote 16: As early as the 2d of November the remainder of the
Würtembergers tore off their colors and concealed them in their
knapsacks.--_Roos's Memorabilia of 1812._]

[Footnote 17: On the 18th of October, the Bavarians, who were
intermixed with Swiss, performed prodigies of valor, but were so
reduced by sufferings of every description as to be unable to maintain
Poloczk. Segur says in his History of the War that St. Cyr left
Wrede's gallant conduct unmentioned in the military despatches, and
that when, on St. Cyr's being disabled by his wounds, Wrede applied
for the chief command, which naturally reverted to him, the army being
almost entirely composed of Bavarians, Napoleon refused his request.
Völderndorf says in his Bavarian Campaigns that St. Cyr faithlessly
abandoned the Bavarians in their utmost extremity, and when all peril
was over returned to Poland in order to retake the command. During the
retreat from Poloczk he had ordered the bridges to be pulled down,
leaving on the other side a Bavarian park of artillery with the army
chest and two-and-twenty ensigns, which for better security had been
packed upon a carriage. The whole of these trophies fell, owing to St.
Cyr's negligence or ill-will, into the hands of the Russians. "The
Bavarians with difficulty concealed their antipathy toward the
French." On St. Cyr's flight, Wrede kept the remainder of the
Bavarians together, covered Napoleon's retreat, and, in conjunction
with the Westphalians and Hessians, stood another encounter with the
Russians at Wilna. Misery and want at length scattered his forces; he,
nevertheless, reassembled them in Poland and was able to place four
thousand men, on St. Cyr's return, under his command. He returned home
to Bavaria sick. Of these four thousand Bavarians but one thousand and
fifty were led by Count Rechberg back to their native soil. A great
number of Bavarians, however, remained under General Zoller to
garrison Thorn, and about fifteen hundred of them returned home.--At
the passage of the Beresina, the Würtembergers had still about eighty
men under arms, and in Poland about three hundred assembled, the only
ones who returned free. Some were afterward liberated from
imprisonment in Russia.]

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