Napoleon's Campaign in Russia, Anno 1812; Medico-Historical Part 13

"At Molodetchno men of our division joined us and brought us the news of the crossing of the Beresina."

von Brandt gives the description of the events at the Beresina and tells of the historical significance of Molodetchno as the place where Napoleon sojourned 18 hours and from where he dated the 29th. bulletin.

"We left the village on the following morning at an early hour and continued our march on the road to Smorgoni.

"A description of this march," writes von Brandt, "would only be a repet.i.tion of what had been said of scenes of preceding days. We were overtaken by a snowstorm the violence of which surpa.s.sed all imagination, fortunately this violence lasted only some hours, but on account of it our little column became dispersed.

"One bivouac left an impression of horror to last for all my lifetime. In a village crowded with soldiers we came to a fire which was burning quite lively, around it were lying some dead. We were tired; it was late, and we decided to rest there. We removed the corpses to make room for the living and arranged ourselves the best way we could. A fence against which the snow had drifted protected us from the north wind. Many who pa.s.sed by envied us this good place. Some stopped for a while, others tried to establish themselves near us. Gradually the fatigue brought sleep to some of us; the stronger ones brought wood to keep up the fire. But it snowed constantly; after one had warmed one side of the body an effort was made to warm the other; after one foot had been warmed the other was brought near the flame; a complete rest was impossible. At daybreak we prepared to depart. Thirteen men of our troop, all wounded, did not answer the roll call. My heart pained.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "No fear, we soon shall follow you."]

"We had to pa.s.s in front of the fence which had given us protection against the wind during the night. Imagine our surprise when we saw that what we had taken for a fence was a pile of corpses which our predecessors had heaped one upon the other. These dead were men of all countries, Frenchmen, Swiss, Italians, Poles, Germans, as we could distinguish by their uniforms.

Most of them had their arms extended as if they had been stretching themselves. 'Look, Captain,' said one of the soldiers, 'they stretch their hands out to us; ah, no fear, we soon shall follow you.'

"We were soon to have another horrid sight. In a village, many houses of which had been burnt, there were the ghastly remains of burnt corpses, and in one building, especially, there was a large number of such infesting the air with their stench. A repet.i.tion of scenes I had seen at Saragossa and at Smolensk."

"At sunset we arrived at Smorgoni, and here we enjoyed great comfort. It was the first place where we could obtain something for money. From an old Jewess we bought bread, rice, and also a little coffee, all at reasonable prices. It was the first cup of coffee I had had for months, and it invigorated me very much."

"We were young, and our good humor had soon been restored to us; it made us forget, for the time being at least, how much we had suffered, and at this moment we did not think of the suffering yet in store for us."

"We left for Ochmiana; our march was tedious. Again we encountered a great many dead strewn on the road; many of them had died from cold; some still had their arms, young men, well dressed, their cloaks, shoes, and socks, however, were taken from them. Half way to Ochmiana we took a rest at a bivouac which had been evacuated quite recently."

"The night we pa.s.sed here was fearful. I had an inflamed foot, and felt a burning pain under the arms which caused me great difficulty in the use of my crutches. Fortunately I found a place on which a fire had been burning, and I was not obliged to sleep on the snow. The soldiers kept up a fire all night, and I had a good and invigorating sleep, in consequence of which I could take up the march on the following day, with new courage and zeal."

"Toward 11 o'clock we arrived, together with a ma.s.s of fugitives, at Ochmiana. Before entering the city we encountered a convoy of provisions, escorted by a young Mecklenburg officer, Lieutenant Rudloff, who some years later served as a Prussian general. He made an attempt to defend his sleighs, but in vain. The crowd surrounded him and his convoy and pushed in such a manner that neither he nor his men were able to stir. The sleighs, carrying excellent biscuits, were pillaged. I myself gathered some in the snow, and I can well say that they saved my life until we reached Wilna."

"Arrived at Ochmiana we at once continued our march upon Miednicki."

"The city was occupied by a crowd of disbanded soldiers--marauders who had established themselves everywhere. It was only with difficulty that we found some sort of lodging in a kind of pavilion which was icy and had no chimneys. However, we managed to heat it and arranged litter for 20 men.

With bread and biscuit brought from Ochmiana we prepared a good meal."

"When we crossed the Goina we numbered 50; this number had increased so that we were at one time 70, but now our number had decreased to 29."

"We left at an early hour on the next morning. It was frightfully cold.

Half way to Miednicki we had to stop at a bivouac. On the road we saw many cadavers." Von Brandt here describes the fatal effects of cold and his description, though less complete, corresponds with the descriptions given by Beaupre, von Scherer, and others. Especially revolting, he says, was the sight of the toes of the cadavers; often there were no more soft parts. The soldiers, first of all, took the shoes from their dead comrades, next the cloaks; they would wear two or three or cut one to cover their feet and their head with the pieces.

The last part of the march to Miedniki was most painful for von Brandt, on account of the inflammation of his left foot.

He describes his stay at that place in which there were many stragglers. He bivouaked in a garden; they had straw enough and a good fire, also biscuits from Ochmiana, and they suffered only from the cold, 30 deg. below zero R.

(36 deg. below zero Fahrenheit.) On this occasion von Brandt speaks of the pains, the sufferings, the condition of his comrades. One of them, Zelinski, had not uttered a word since their departure from Smorgoni; he had no tobacco, and this troubled him more than physical pain; another one, Karpisz, crushed by sorrow and sufferings, was in a delirious state; in the same condition were some of the wounded. But after all, in the midst of their sad reflections, some of them fell asleep. Those who were well enough took up reliefs on night watch. Every one of the group had to bear some special great misery, and upon the whole their trials were beyond endurance: In the open air at 30 deg. R. below zero, without sufficient clothing, without provisions, full of vermin, exposed at any moment to the attacks of the enemy, surrounded by a rapacious rabble, deprived of aid, wounded, they were hardly in a condition to drag themselves along.

"Still an 8 hours' march to Wilna," I said to Zelinski; "Will we reach there?" He shook his head in doubt.

One of the men, Wasilenka, a sergeant, the most courageous, the firmest of the little column, of a robust const.i.tution, had found at Ochmiana some brandy and some potatoes. He said if one had not lost his head entirely, one could have many things, but nothing can be done with the French any more; they are not the Frenchmen of former times, a Cossack's casque upsets them; it is a shame! And he told the great news of Napoleon's departure from the army of which the others of von Brandt's column had yet not been informed. Interesting as was the conversation on this event, I have to omit it.

The extreme cold did not allow much sleep; long before daylight they were on their feet. It was a morning of desolation, as always.

von Brandt now describes the characteristic phenomena of the landscape; the words are almost identical with the description Beaupre has given of the Russian landscape in the winter of 1812.

"I could not march, the pain under my shoulders was very great. I felt as if all at this region of my body would tear off. But I marched all the same. Many were already on the road, all in haste to reach the supposed end of their sufferings. They seemed to be in a race, and the cold, the incredible cold, drove them also to march quickly. On this day there perished more men than usual, and we pa.s.sed these unfortunates without a sign of pity, as if all human feeling had been extinguished in the souls of us, the surviving. We marched in silence, hardly any one uttered a word; if, however, some one spoke, it was to say how is it that I am not in your place; besides this nothing was heard but the sighing and the groans of the dying.

"It was perhaps 9 o'clock when we had covered half of the way and took a short rest, after which we resumed our march and arrived before Wilna toward 3 o'clock, having marched ten hours, exhausted beyond description.

The cold was intolerable; as I learned afterward it had reached 29 deg.

below zero Reaumur (36 deg. below zero Fahrenheit.) But imagine our surprise when armed guards forbade us to enter the city. The order had been given to admit only regular troops. The commanders had thought of the excesses of Smolensk and Orscha and here at least they intended to save the magazines from pillage. Our little column remained at the gate for a while; we saw that whoever risked to mix with the crowd could not extricate himself again and could neither advance nor return. It came near sunset, the cold by no means abated but, on the contrary, augmented. Every minute the crowd increased in number, the dying and dead mixed up with the living.

We decided to go around the city, to try to enter at some other part; after half an hour's march we succeeded and found ourselves in the streets. They were full of baggage, soldiers, and inhabitants. But where to turn? Where to seek aid? By good luck we remembered that our officers pa.s.sing Wilna on their way during the spring had been well received by Mr. Malczewski, a friend of our colonel. Nothing more natural than to go to him and ask for asylum. But imagine our joy, our delight, when at our arrival at the house we found our colonel himself, the quartermaster and many officers known by us, who all were the guests of Mr. Malczewski. Even Lieutenant Gordon who commanded our depot at Thorn was there; he had come after he had had the news of the battle of Borodino.

"My faithful servant Maciejowski and the brave Wasilenka carried me up the stairs and placed me in bed. I was half dead, hardly master of my senses.

Gordon gave me a s.h.i.+rt, my servant took charge of my garments to free them from vermin, and after I had had some cups of hot beer with ginger in it and was under a warm blanket, I recovered strength enough to understand what I was told and to do what I was asked to do."

"A Jewish physician examined and dressed my wounds. He found my shoulders very much inflamed and prescribed an ointment which had an excellent effect. I fell into a profound sleep which was interrupted by the most bizarre imaginary scenes; there was not one of the hideous episodes of the last fortnight which did not pa.s.s in some form or another before my mind."

"Washed, cleaned, pa.s.sably invigorated, refreshed especially by some cups of hot beer, I was able to rise on the following morning and to a.s.sist at the council which the colonel had called together."

Von Brandt now describes how the ma.s.s of fugitives came and pillaged the magazines. The colonel saved a great many, supplied them with shoes, cloaks, caps, woolen socks, and provisions, von Brandt describes the scenes of Wilna from the time the Cossacks had entered.

"The colonel prepared to depart; at first he hesitated to take us, the wounded, along, asking if we could stand the voyage. I said to remain would be certain death, and with confidence I set out on the march with my men, the number of whom was now twenty. We had sleighs and good horses.

"The night was superb. It was light like day. The stars shone more radiantly than ever upon our misery. The cold was still severe beyond description and more sensible to us who had nearly lost the habit to feel it during forty-eight hours of relief.

"We had to make our way through an indescribable tangle of carriages and wagons to reach the gate, and the road as far as we could see was also covered with vehicles, wagons, sleighs, cannons, all mixed up. We had great difficulties to remain together.

"After an hour's march all came to a halt; we found ourselves before a veritable sea of men. The wagons could not be drawn over a hill on account of the ice, and the road became hopelessly blockaded. Here it was where the military treasure of 12 million francs was given to the soldiers."

Von Brandt describes his most wonderful adventures on the way to Kowno which, although most interesting, add nothing to what has already been described. I gave this foregoing part of von Brandt's narration because it gives a most vivid picture of the life of the soldiers during the supreme moments of the retreat from Moscow.

PRISONERS OF WAR

Beaupre was taken prisoner at the pa.s.sage of the Beresina and remained in captivity for some time. His lot as a prisoner of war was an exceptionally good one. He tells us that prisoners when they were out of such parts of the country as had been ravaged by the armies, received regular rations of a very good quality, and were lodged by eight, ten, and twelve, with the peasants. In the provincial capitals, they received furs of sheep skin, fur bonnets, gloves, and coa.r.s.e woolen stockings, a sort of dress that appeared to them grotesque as well as novel, but which was very precious as a protection against the cold during the winter. When arrived at the places in which they were to pa.s.s the time of their captivity they found their lot ameliorated, and the reception accorded to them demanded a grateful eulogy of the hospitality exercised by the Russians.

Quite different was the experience of a very young German, Karl Schehl, a private whose memoirs have been kept in his family, and were recently published by one of his grand-nephews. After a battle on the retreat from Moscow he, with many others, was taken prisoner by Cossacks, who at once plundered the captives. Schehl was deprived of his uniform, his breeches, his boots. He had a gold ring on his ring finger, and one of the Cossacks, thinking it too much trouble to remove the ring in the natural way, had already drawn his sabre to cut off the prisoner's left hand, when an officer saw this and gave the brutal Cossack a terrible blow in the face; he then removed the ring without hurting the boy and kept it for himself.

Another officer took Schehl's gold watch. Schehl stood then with no other garment but a s.h.i.+rt, and barefoot, in the bitter cold, not daring to approach the bivouac fire.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The Cossacks (on examining the garments of Schehl), found in one of the pockets a B clarinette. This discovery gave them great pleasure; they induced their captive to play for them, and he played, chilled to the bone in his scanty costume. But now the Cossacks came to offer him garments, a regular outfit for the Russian winter. They gave him food to eat and did all they could to show their appreciation of the music. What a rapid change of fortune within two hours, writes Schehl. Toward noon, riding a good horse, with considerable money in Russian bank notes and a valuable gold watch in his possession, all brought from Moscow, at 1 p.m. he stood dressed in a s.h.i.+rt only, with his bare feet on the frozen ground, and at 2 p. m. he was admired as an artist by a large audience that gave him warm clothes, which meant protection against the danger of freezing to death, and a place near the fire.

During that afternoon and the following night more French soldiers of all arms, mostly emaciated and miserable, were escorted to the camp by Russian militia, peasants, armed with long, sharp lances. It was the night from October 30th. to 31st., at the time of the first snowfall, with a temperature of -12 deg. Reaumur (about 5 degrees above zero Fahrenheit). Of the 700 prisoners, many of them deprived of their clothing, as Schehl had been deprived, who had to camp without a fire, quite a number did not see the next morning, and the already described snow hills indicated where these unfortunates had reached the end of their sufferings. The commanding officer of the Cossacks ordered the surviving prisoners to fall in line for the march back to Moscow. The escort consisted of two Cossacks and several hundred peasant-soldiers. Within sixteen hours the 700 had been reduced to 500. And they had to march back over the road which they had come yesterday as companions of their emperor. The march was slow, they were hardly an hour on the road when here and there one of the poor, half naked, starving men fell into the snow; immediately was he pierced with the lance of one of the peasant soldiers who shouted stopai sukinsin (forward you dog), but as a rule the one who had fallen was no longer able to obey the brutal command. Two Russian peasant soldiers would then take hold, one at each leg, and drag the dying man with the head over snow and stones until he was dead, then leave the corpse in the middle of the road. In the woods they would practice the same cruelties as the North American Indians, tie those who could not rise to a tree and amuse themselves by torturing the victim to death with their lances. And, says Schehl, I could narrate still other savageries, but they are too revolting, they are worse than those of the savage Indians. Fortunately, Schehl himself was protected from all molestations by the peasants by the two Cossacks of the escort. He was even taken into the provision wagon where he could ride between bundles of hay and straw. On the evening of the first day's march the troops camped in a birch forest. Russian people are fond of melancholy music; Schehl played for them adagios on his clarinette, and the Cossacks gave him the best they had to eat. His comrades, now reduced to 400 in number, received no food and were so terror-stricken or so feeble that only from time to time they emitted sounds of clamor. Some would crawl into the snow and perish, while those who kept on moving were able to prolong their miserable lives. The second night took away 100 more, so that the number of prisoners was reduced to less than 300 on the morning of October 31st. During the night from October 31st. to November 1st. more than one-half of the prisoners who had come into the camp had perished, and there were only about 100 men left to begin the march. This mortality was frightful. Schehl thinks that the peasants killed many during the night in order to be relieved of their guard duty. For the Cossacks would send the superfluous guardsmen away and retain only as many as one for every four prisoners. They saw that the completely exhausted Frenchmen could be driven forward like a herd of sick sheep, and hardly needed any guard. In the morning we pa.s.sed a village, writes Schehl, in which stood some houses which had not been burned. The returned inhabitants were busy clearing away the rubbish and had built some provisional straw huts. I sat as harmless as possible on my wagon when suddenly a girl in one of the straw huts screamed loud Matuschka!

Matuschka! Franzusi! Franzusi Niewolni! (Mother! mother! Frenchmen! French prisoners!), and now sprang forward a large woman, armed with a thick club and struck me such a powerful blow on the head that I became unconscious.

When I opened my eyes again the woman struck me once more, this time on my left shoulder and so violently that I screamed. My arm was paralyzed from the stroke. Fortunately, one of the Cossacks came to my rescue, scolded the woman, and chased her away.

On the evening of November 1st., the troops came to a village through which no soldiers had pa.s.sed, which had not been disturbed by the war. Of the prisoners only 60 remained alive, and these were lodged in the houses.

Schehl describes the interior of the houses of Russian peasants as well as the customs of the Russian peasants, which description is highly interesting, and I shall give a brief abstract of it.