History of the Expedition to Russia Part 44

At the same time, the general of his vanguard apprised him that the bridges of Studzianka were burnt; an aide-de-camp, named Rochex, who had just brought the report, pretended that he had seen them burning.

Partouneaux believed this false intelligence, for, in regard to calamities, misfortune is credulous.

He concluded that he was abandoned and sacrificed; and as the night, the inc.u.mbrances, and the necessity of facing the enemy on three sides, separated his weak brigades, he desired each of them to be told to try and steal off, under favour of the darkness, along the flanks of the enemy. He himself, with one of these brigades, reduced to four hundred men, ascended the steep and woody heights on his right, with the hope of pa.s.sing through Wittgenstein's army in the darkness, of escaping him, and rejoining Victor; or, at all events, of getting round by the sources of the Berezina.

But at every point where he attempted to pa.s.s, he encountered the enemy's fires, and he turned again; he wandered about for several hours quite at random, in plains of snow, in the midst of a violent hurricane.

At every step he saw his soldiers transfixed by the cold, emaciated 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 earth give way under his feet. In fact, being deceived by the snow, he had fallen into a lake, which was not frozen sufficiently hard to bear him, and in which he would have been drowned. Then only he yielded and gave up his arms.

While this catastrophe was accomplis.h.i.+ng, his other three brigades, being more and more hemmed in upon the road, lost all power of movement.

They delayed their surrender till the next morning, first by fighting, and then by parleying; they then all fell in their turn; a common misfortune again united them with their general.

Of the whole division, a single battalion only escaped: it had been left the last in Borizof. It quitted it in the midst of the Russians of Platof and of Tchitchakof, who were effecting in that town, and at that very moment, the junction of the armies of Moscow and of Moldavia. This battalion, being alone and separated from its division, might have been expected to be the first to fall, but that very circ.u.mstance saved it.

Several long trains of equipages and disbanded soldiers were flying towards Studzianka in different directions; drawn aside by one of these crowds, mistaking his road, and leaving on his right that which had been taken by the army, the leader of this battalion glided to the borders of the river, followed all its windings and turnings, and protected by the combat of his less fortunate comrades, by the darkness, and the very difficulties of the ground, moved off in silence, escaped from the enemy, and brought to Victor the confirmation of Partouneaux's surrender.

When Napoleon heard the news, he was struck with grief, and exclaimed, "How unfortunate it was, that when all appeared to be saved, as if miraculously, this _defection_ had happened, to spoil all!" The expression was improper, but grief extorted it from him, either because he antic.i.p.ated that Victor, being thus weakened, would be unable to hold out long enough next day; or because he had made it a point of honour to have left nothing during the whole of his retreat in the hands of the enemy, but stragglers, and no armed and organised corps. In fact, this division was the first and the only one which laid down its arms.

CHAP. VIII.

This success encouraged Wittgenstein. At the same time, after two days feeling his way, the report of a prisoner, and the recapture of Borizof by Platof had opened Tchitchakof's eyes. From that moment the three Russian armies of the north, east, and south, felt themselves united; their commanders had mutual communications. Wittgenstein and Tchitchakof were jealous of each other, but they detested us still more; hatred, and not friends.h.i.+p, was their bond of union. These generals were therefore prepared to attack in conjunction the bridges of Studzianka, on both sides of the river.

This was on the 28th of November. The grand army had had two days and two nights to effect its pa.s.sage; it ought to have been too late for the Russians. But the French were in a state of complete disorder, and materials were deficient for two bridges. Twice during the night of the 26th, the one for the carriages had broke down, and the pa.s.sage had been r.e.t.a.r.ded by it for seven hours: it broke a third time on the 27th, about four in the afternoon. On the other hand, the stragglers, who had been dispersed in the woods and surrounding villages, had not taken advantage of the first night, and on the 27th, when daylight appeared, they all presented themselves at once in order to cross the bridges.

This was particularly the case when the guard, by whose movements they regulated themselves, began its march. Its departure was like a signal; they rushed in from all parts, and crowded upon the bank. Instantly there was seen a deep, broad, and confused ma.s.s of men, horses, and chariots, besieging the narrow entrance of the bridge, and overwhelming it. The first, pushed forward by those behind them, and driven back by the guards and pontonniers, or stopped by the river, were crushed, trod underfoot, or precipitated among the floating ices of the Berezina. From this immense and horrible rabble-rout there arose at times a confused buzzing noise, at others a loud clamour, mingled with groans and fearful imprecations.

The efforts of Napoleon and his lieutenants to save these desperate men by restoring order among them, were for a long time completely fruitless. The disorder was so great, that, about two o'clock, when the Emperor presented himself in his turn, it was necessary to employ force to open a pa.s.sage for him. A corps of grenadiers of the guard, and Latour-Maubourg, out of pure compa.s.sion, declined clearing themselves a way through these poor wretches.

The imperial head-quarters were established at the hamlet of Zaniwki, which is situated in the midst of the woods, within a league of Studzianka. Eble had just then made a survey of the baggage with which the bank was covered; he apprised the Emperor that six days would not be sufficient to enable so many carriages to pa.s.s over. Ney, who was present, immediately called out, "that in that case they had better be burnt immediately." But Berthier, instigated by the demon of courts, opposed this; he a.s.sured the Emperor that the army was far from being reduced to that extremity, and the Emperor was led to believe him, from a preference for the opinion which flattered him the most, and from a wish to spare so many men, whose misfortunes he reproached himself as the cause of, and whose provisions and little all these carriages contained.

In the night of the 27th the disorder ceased by the effect of an opposite disorder. The bridges were abandoned, and the village of Studzianka attracted all these stragglers; in an instant, it was pulled to pieces, disappeared, and was converted into an infinite number of bivouacs. Cold and hunger kept these wretched people fixed around them; it was found impossible to tear them from them. The whole of that night was again lost for their pa.s.sage.

Meantime Victor, with six thousand men, was defending them against Wittgenstein. But with the first dawn of the 28th, when they saw that marshal preparing for a battle, when they heard the cannon of Wittgenstein thundering over their heads, and that of Tchitchakof at the same time on the opposite bank, they rose all at once, they descended, precipitated themselves tumultuously, and returned to besiege the bridges.

Their terror was not without foundation; the last day of numbers of these unfortunate persons was come. Wittgenstein and Platof, with forty thousand Russians of the armies of the north and east, attacked the heights on the left bank, which Victor, with his small force, defended.

On the right bank, Tchitchakof, with his twenty-seven thousand Russians of the army of the south, debouched from Stachowa against Oudinot, Ney, and Dombrowski. These three could hardly reckon eight thousand men in their ranks, which were supported by the sacred squadron, as well as by the old and young guard, who then consisted of three thousand eight hundred infantry and nine hundred cavalry.

The two Russian armies attempted to possess themselves at once of the two outlets from the bridges, and of all who had been unable to push forward beyond the marshes of Zembin. More than sixty thousand men, well clothed, well fed, and completely armed, attacked eighteen thousand half-naked, badly armed, dying of hunger, separated by a river, surrounded by mora.s.ses, and additionally enc.u.mbered with more than fifty thousand stragglers, sick or wounded, and by an enormous ma.s.s of baggage. During the last two days, the cold and misery had been such that the old guard had lost two-thirds, and the young guard one-half of their effective men.

This fact, and the calamity which had fallen upon Partouneaux's division, sufficiently explain the frightful diminution of Victor's corps, and yet that marshal kept Wittgenstein in check during the whole of that day, the 28th. As to Tchitchakof, he was beaten. Marshal Ney, with his eight thousand French, Swiss, and Poles, was a match for twenty-seven thousand Russians.

The admiral's attack was tardy and feeble. His cannon cleared the road, but he durst not venture to follow his bullets, and penetrate by the chasm which they made in our ranks. Opposite to his right, however, the legion of the Vistula gave way to the attack of a strong column.

Oudinot, Albert, Dombrowski, Claparede, and Kosikowski were then wounded; some uneasiness began to be felt. But Ney hastened forward; he made Doumerc and his cavalry dash quite across the woods upon the flank of that Russian column; they broke through it, took two thousand prisoners, cut the rest to pieces, and by this vigorous charge decided the fate of the battle, which was dragging on in uncertainty.

Tchitchakof, thus defeated, was driven back into Stachowa.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pa.s.sage of the Berezina]

On our side, most of the generals of the second corps were wounded; for the less troops they had, the more they were obliged to expose their persons. Many officers on this occasion took the muskets and the places of their wounded men. Among the losses of the day, that of young Noailles, Berthier's aide-de-camp, was remarkable. He was struck dead by a ball. He was one of those meritorious but too ardent officers, who are incessantly exposing themselves, and are considered sufficiently rewarded by being employed.

During this combat, Napoleon, at the head of his guard, remained in reserve at Brilowa, covering the outlet of the bridges, between the two armies, but nearer to that of Victor. That marshal, although attacked in a very dangerous position, and by a force quadruple his own, lost very little ground. The right of his _corps d'armee_, mutilated by the capture of Partouneaux's division, was protected by the river, and supported by a battery which the Emperor had erected on the opposite bank. His front was defended by a ravine, but his left was in the air, without support, and in a manner lost, in the elevated plain of Studzianka.

Wittgenstein's first attack was not made until ten o'clock in the morning of the 28th, across the road of Borizof, and along the Berezina, which he endeavoured to ascend as far as the pa.s.sage, but the French right wing stopped him, and kept him back for a considerable time, out of reach of the bridges. He then deployed, and extended the engagement with the whole front of Victor, but without effect. One of his attacking columns attempted to cross the ravine, but it was attacked and destroyed.

At last, about the middle of the day, the Russian discovered the point where his superiority lay: he overwhelmed the French left wing. Every thing would then have been lost had it not been for an effort of Fournier, and the devotion of Latour-Maubourg. That general was pa.s.sing the bridges with his cavalry; he perceived the danger, retraced his steps, and the enemy was again stopped by a most sanguinary charge.

Night came on before Wittgenstein's forty thousand men had made any impression on the six thousand of the Duke of Belluno. That marshal remained in possession of the heights of Studzianka, and still preserved the bridges from the attacks of the Russian infantry, but he was unable to conceal them from the artillery of their left wing.

CHAP. IX.

During the whole of that day, the situation of the ninth corps was so much more critical, as a weak and narrow bridge was its only means of retreat; in addition to which its avenues were obstructed by the baggage and the stragglers. By degrees, as the action got warmer, the terror of these poor wretches increased their disorder. First of all they were alarmed by the rumours of a serious engagement, then by seeing the wounded returning from it, and last of all by the batteries of the Russian left wing, some bullets from which began to fall among their confused ma.s.s.

They had all been already crowding one upon the other, and the immense mult.i.tude heaped upon the bank pell-mell with the horses and carriages, there formed a most alarming inc.u.mbrance. It was about the middle of the day that the first Russian bullets fell in the midst of this chaos; they were the signal of universal despair.

Then it was, as in all cases of extremity, that dispositions exhibited themselves without disguise, and actions were witnessed, most base, and others most sublime. According to their different characters, some furious and determined, with sword in hand, cleared for themselves a horrible pa.s.sage. Others, still more cruel, opened a way for their carriages by driving them without mercy over the crowd of unfortunate persons who stood in the way, whom they crushed to death. Their detestable avarice made them sacrifice their companions in misfortune to the preservation of their baggage. Others, seized with a disgusting terror, wept, supplicated, and sunk under the influence of that pa.s.sion, which completed the exhaustion of their strength. Some were observed, (and these were princ.i.p.ally the sick and wounded,) who, renouncing life, went aside and sat down resigned, looking with a fixed eye on the snow which was shortly to be their tomb.

Numbers of those who started first among this crowd of desperadoes missed the bridge, and attempted to scale it by the sides, but the greater part were pushed into the river. There were seen women in the midst of the ice, with their children in their arms, raising them as they felt themselves sinking, and even when completely immerged, their stiffened arms still held them above them.

In the midst of this horrible disorder, the artillery bridge burst and broke down. The column, entangled in this narrow pa.s.sage, in vain attempted to retrograde. The crowds of men who came behind, unaware of the calamity, and not hearing the cries of those before them, pushed them on, and threw them into the gulf, into which they were precipitated in their turn.

Every one then attempted to pa.s.s by the other bridge. A number of large ammunition waggons, heavy carriages, and cannon crowded to it from all parts. Directed by their drivers, and carried along rapidly over a rough and unequal declivity, in the midst of heaps of men, they ground to powder the poor wretches who were unlucky enough to get between them; after which, the greater part, driving violently against each other and getting overturned, killed in their fall those who surrounded them.

Whole rows of these desperate creatures being pushed against these obstacles, got entangled among them, were thrown down and crushed to pieces by ma.s.ses of other unfortunates who succeeded each other uninterruptedly.

Crowds of them were rolling in this way, one over the other, nothing was heard but cries of rage and suffering. In this frightful medley, those who were trod under and stifled, struggled under the feet of their companions, whom they laid hold of with their nails and teeth, and by whom they were repelled without mercy, as if they had been enemies.

Among them were wives and mothers, calling in vain, and in tones of distraction, for their husbands and their children, from whom they had been separated but a moment before, never more to be united: they stretched out their arms and entreated to be allowed to pa.s.s in order to rejoin them; but being carried backwards and forwards by the crowd, and overcome by the pressure, they sunk under without being even remarked.

Amidst the tremendous noise of a furious hurricane, the firing of cannon, the whistling of the storm and of the bullets, the explosion of sh.e.l.ls, vociferations, groans, and the most frightful oaths, this infuriated and disorderly crowd heard not the complaints of the victims whom it was swallowing up.

The more fortunate gained the bridge by scrambling over heaps of wounded, of women and children thrown down and half suffocated, and whom they again trod down in their attempts to reach it. When at last they got to the narrow defile, they fancied they were safe, but the fall of a horse, or the breaking or displacing of a plank again stopped all.

There was also, at the outlet of the bridge, on the other side, a mora.s.s, into which many horses and carriages had sunk, a circ.u.mstance which again embarra.s.sed and r.e.t.a.r.ded the clearance. Then it was, that in that column of desperadoes, crowded together on that single plank of safety, there arose an internal struggle, in which the weakest and worst situated were thrown into the river by the strongest. The latter, without turning their heads, and carried away by the instinct of self-preservation, pushed on toward the goal with fury, regardless of the imprecations of rage and despair, uttered by their companions or their officers, whom they had thus sacrificed.

But on the other hand, how many n.o.ble instances of devotion! and why are time and s.p.a.ce denied me to relate them? There were seen soldiers, and even officers, harnessing themselves to sledges, to s.n.a.t.c.h from that fatal bank their sick or wounded comrades. Farther off, and out of reach of the crowd, were seen soldiers motionless, watching over their dying officers, who had entrusted themselves to their care; the latter in vain conjured them to think of nothing but their own preservation, they refused, and, sooner than abandon their leaders, were contented to wait the approach of slavery or death.

Above the first pa.s.sage, while the young Lauriston threw himself into the river, in order to execute the orders of his sovereign more promptly, a little boat, carrying a mother and her two children, was overset and sunk under the ice; an artilleryman, who was struggling like the others on the bridge to open a pa.s.sage for himself, saw the accident; all at once, forgetting himself, he threw himself into the river, and by great exertion, succeeded in saving one of the three victims. It was the youngest of the two children; the poor little thing kept calling for its mother with cries of despair, and the brave artilleryman was heard telling it, "not to cry; that he had not preserved it from the water merely to desert it on the bank; that it should want for nothing; that he would be its father, and its family."

The night of the 28th added to all these calamities. Its darkness was insufficient to conceal its victims from the artillery of the Russians.

Amidst the snow, which covered every thing, the course of the river, the thorough black ma.s.s of men, horses, carriages, and the noise proceeding from them, were sufficient to enable the enemy's artillerymen, to direct their fire.

About nine o'clock at night there was a still farther increase of desolation, when Victor began his retreat, and his divisions came and opened themselves a horrible breach through these unhappy wretches, whom they had till then been protecting. A rear-guard, however, having been left at Studzianka, the mult.i.tude, benumbed with cold, or too anxious to preserve their baggage, refused to avail themselves of the last night for pa.s.sing to the opposite side. In vain were the carriages set fire to, in order to tear them from them. It was only the appearance of daylight, which brought them all at once, but too late, to the entrance of the bridge, which they again besieged. It was half-past eight in the morning, when Eble, seeing the Russians approaching, at last set fire to it.

The disaster had reached its utmost bounds. A mult.i.tude of carriages, three cannon, several thousand men and women, and some children, were abandoned on the hostile bank. They were seen wandering in desolate troops on the borders of the river. Some threw themselves into it in order to swim across; others ventured themselves on the pieces of ice which were floating along: some there were also who threw themselves headlong into the flames of the burning bridge, which sunk under them; burnt and frozen at one and the same time, they perished under two opposite punishments. Shortly after, the bodies of all sorts were perceived collecting together and the ice against the tressels of the bridge. The rest awaited the Russians. Wittgenstein did not show himself upon the heights until an hour after Eble's departure, and, without having gained a victory, reaped all the fruits of one.