peace,–for peace could not be the price of a forced retreat,–and for such a result the field of Borodino was covered with 50 thousand dead. Here, as we have learned, were found the Westphalians, not more than 3 thousand, the remainder of 10 thousand at Smolensk, of 23 thousand who crossed the Niemen.
Napoleon gave orders to take the wounded at Borodino into the baggage wagons and forced every officer, every refugee from Moscow who had a vehicle, to take the wounded as the most precious load.
The rear guard under Davout left the fearful place on October 31st., and camped over night half-way to the little town of Ghjat. The night was bitter cold, and the soldiers began to suffer very much from the low temperature.
From this time on, every day made the retreat more difficult, for the cold became more and more severe from day to day, and the enemy more pressing.
The Russian general, Kutusof, might now have marched ahead of Napoleon’s army, which was retarded by so many impediments, and annihilated it by a decisive battle, but he did not take this risk, preferring a certain and safe tactic, by constantly harassing the French, surprising one or the other of the rear columns by a sudden attack. He had a strong force of cavalry and artillery, and, above all, good horses, while the rearguard of the French, for want of horses, consisted of infantry; there was, for instance, nothing left of General Grouchy’s cavalry. The infantry of Marshal Davout, who commanded the rearguard, had to do the service of all arms, often being compelled to face the artillery of the enemy which had good horses, while their own was dragged along by exhausted animals scarcely able to move.
Davout’s men fought the Russians with the bayonet and took cannons from them, but being without horses they were compelled to leave them on the road, content rearguarding themselves to remain undisturbed for some hours.
Gradually the French had to part with their own cannons and ammunition; sinister explosions told the soldiers of increasing distress.
As it is in all great calamities of great masses: increasing misery also increases egotism and heroism. Miserable drivers of wagons to whom the wounded had been entrusted took advantage of the night and threw the helpless wounded on the road where the rearguard found them dead or dying. The guilty drivers, when discovered, were punished; but it was difficult to detect them, with the general confusion of the retreat making its first appearance.
Wounded soldiers who had been abandoned could be seen at every step. The tail of the army, composed of stragglers, of tired, discouraged or sick soldiers, all marching without arms and without discipline, continually increased in number, to the mortification of the rearguard which had to deal with these men who would not subordinate their own selves to the welfare of the whole.
It is tempting to describe the terrible engagements, the almost superhuman, admirable bravery of Napoleon’s soldiers, who often, after having had the hardest task imaginable and constantly in danger of being annihilated, were forced to pass the bitter cold nights without eating, without rest, and although all details bear on the medical history I am obliged to confine myself to a few sketches between the description of purely medical matters.
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I happened to find in the surgeon-general’s library a rare book: Moricheau Beaupre, A Treatise on the Effects and Properties of Cold, with a Sketch, Historical and Medical, of the Russian Campaign. Translated by John Clendining, with appendix, xviii, 375 pp. 8vo., Edinburgh, Maclachnan and Stewart, 1826.
This most valuable book is not mentioned in any of the numerous publications on the medical history of the Russian campaign of Napoleon which I examined, and I shall now give an extract of what Beaupre writes on the Effects of Cold in General:
Distant expeditions, immaterial whether in cold or warm countries, with extremes of temperature, are always disadvantageous and must cause great sacrifice of life, not only on account of the untried influence of extreme temperatures on individuals born in other climates, but also on account of the fatigues inseparable from traversing long distances, of an irregular life, of a multiplicity of events and circumstances impossible to foresee, or which at least had not been foreseen, and which operate very unfavorably, morally and physically, on military persons. The expedition of the French army into Russia offers a sad proof of this truth, but history has recorded similar experiences. The army of Alexander the Great suffered frightfully from cold on two occasions: first, when that ambitious conqueror involved himself amid snows, in savage and barbarous regions of northern Asia before reaching the Caucasus; the second time, when, after having crossed these mountains, he passed the Tanais to subdue the Scythians, and the soldiers were oppressed with thirst, hunger, fatigue, and despair, so that a great number died on the road, or lost their feet from congelation; the cold seizing them, it benumbed their hands, and they fell at full length on the snow to rise no more. The best means they knew, says Q. Curtius, to escape that mortal numbness, was not to stop, but to force themselves to keep marching, or else to light great fires at intervals. Charles XII, a great warrior alike rash and unreflecting, in 1707 penetrated into Russia and persisted in his determination of marching to Moscow despite the wise advice given him to retire into Poland. The winter was so severe and the cold so intense that the Swedes and Russians could scarcely hold their arms. He saw part of his army perish before his eyes, of cold, hunger, and misery, amid the desert and icy steppes of the Ukraine. If he had reached Moscow, it is probable that the Russians would have set him at bay, and that his army, forced to retire, would have experienced the same fate as the French.
In the retreat of Prague in 1742 the French army, commanded by Marshal Belle-Isle, little accustomed to a winter campaign, was forced to traverse impracticable defiles across mountains and ravines covered with snow. In ten days 4 thousand men perished of cold and misery; food and clothing were deficient, the soldiers died in anguish and despair, and a great many of the officers and soldiers had their noses, feet and hands frozen. The Russians regard the winter of 1812 as one of the most rigorous of which they have any record; it was intensely felt through all Russia, even in the most southerly parts. As a proof of this fact the Tartars of the Crimea mentioned to Beaupre the behavior of the great and little bustard, which annually at that season of the year quit the plain for protection against the cold and migrate to the southern part of that peninsula toward the coasts. But during that winter they were benumbed by the cold and dropped on the snow, so that a great many of them were caught. In the low hills, in the spring of 1813, the ground in some places was covered with the remains of those birds entire.
Of the effects of cold in general Beaupre says that soldiers who are rarely provided with certain articles of dress suitable for winter, whose caps do not entirely protect the lateral and superior parts of the head, and who often suffer from cold in bivouacs, are very liable to have ears and fingers seized on by asphyxia and mortification. Troopers who remain several days without taking off their boots, and whose usual posture on horseback contributes to benumb the extremities, often have their toes and feet frozen without suspecting it.
Cold produces fatal effects above as well as below the freezing point. A continued moderate cold has the same consequences as a severe cold of short duration. When very intense, as in the north, it sometimes acts on the organism so briskly as to depress and destroy its powers with astonishing rapidity. As the action of cold is most frequently slow and death does not take place until after several hours’ exposure, the contraction that diminishes the caliber of the vessels more and more deeply, repels the blood toward the cavities of the head, chest, and abdomen; it causes, in the circulation of the lungs, and in that of the venous system of the head, an embarrassment that disturbs the function of the brain and concurs to produce somnolence. The probability of this explanation is strengthened by the flowing of the blood from the nose to the ears, spontaneous haemoptysis, also by preternatural redness of the viscera, engorgements of the cerebral vessel, and bloody effusion, all of which conditions have been found after death.
It is certain that in spite of every possible means of congestion or effusion within the cranium, constant and forced motion is necessary for the foot soldier to save him from surprise. The horseman must dismount as quickly as possible and constrain himself to walk. Commanders of divisions should not order halts in winter, and they should take care that the men do not lag behind on the march. Necessary above all are gaiety, courage, and perseverance of the mind; these qualities are the surest means of escaping danger. He who has the misfortune of being alone, inevitably perishes.
In Siberia, the Russian soldiers, to protect themselves from the action of the cold, cover their noses and ears with greased paper. Fatty matters seem to have the power of protecting from cold, or at least of greatly diminishing its action. The Laplander and the Samoiede anoint their skin with rancid fish oil, and thus expose themselves in the mountains to a temperature of -36 deg. Reaumur, or 50 deg. below zero Fahrenheit. Xenophon, during the retreat of the 10 thousand, ordered all his soldiers to grease those parts that were exposed to the air. If this remedy could have been employed, says Beaupre, on the retreat from Moscow, it is probable that it would have prevented more than one accident.
Most of those who escaped the danger of the cold ultimately fell sick. In 1813 a number of soldiers, more or less seriously injured by cold, filled the hospitals of Poland, Prussia, and other parts of Germany. From the shores of the Niemen to the banks of the Rhine it was easy to recognize those persons who constituted the remainder of an army immolated by cold and misery the most appalling. Many, not yet arrived at the limit of their sufferings, distributed themselves in the hospitals on this side of the Rhine, and even as far as the south of France, where they came to undergo various extirpations, incisions, and amputations, necessitated by the physical disorder so often inseparable from profound gangraene.
Mutilation of hands and feet, loss of the nose, of an ear, weakness of sight, deafness, complete or incomplete, neuralgy, rheumatism, palsies, chronic diarrhoea, pectoral affections, recall still more strongly the horrors of this campaign to those who bear such painful mementos.
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But now let us return to the dissertation of von Scherer which gives the most graphic and complete description of the effect of cold.
After the battle of Borodino, on September 5th. and 7th., the army marched to Moscow and arrived there on September 11th., exhausted to the highest degree from hunger and misery. The number of Wuerttembergians suffering from dysentery was very large. A hospital was organized for them in a sugar refinery outside of Moscow. Many died here, but the greater number was left to its fate during the retreat of the army.
The quarters at Moscow until October 19th. improved the condition of the army very little. Devoured by hunger, in want of all necessities, the army had arrived. The terrible fire of the immense city had greatly reduced the hope for comfortable winter quarters. Although the eatables which had been saved from the fire were distributed among the soldiers who, during the weeks of their sojourn, had wine, tea, coffee, meat, and bread, all wholesome and plentiful, yet dysentery continued and in most patients had assumed a typhoid character. [Footnote: The word typhoid means “resembling typhus,” and in Europe this term is correctly employed to designate a somnolent or other general condition in all kinds of feverish diseases which remind one of typhus symptoms. What English and American physicians call typhus or typhus fever is known to European physicians under the name of exanthematic or petechial typhus, indicating a symptom by which it is distinguished from abdominal typhus.]
Besides, real typhus had now made its appearance in the army and, spreading rapidly through infection, caused great loss of life and brought the misery to a climax. The great number of the sick, crowded together in unfit quarters; the stench of the innumerable unburied and putrefying cadavers of men and animals in the streets of Moscow, among them the corpses of several thousand Russians who had been taken prisoners and then massacred, not to speak of the putrefying cadavers on the battlefields and roads over which the army had marched, all this had finally developed into a pest-like typhus.
After the retreat from Moscow had been decided upon, many thousands of the sick were sent ahead on wagons under strong guards. These wagons took the shortest road to Borodino, while the army took the road to Kaluga. Several thousand typhus patients were left in Moscow, all of whom died, with the exception of a few, according to later information. Many of those who, although suffering from typhus, had retained strength enough to have themselves transported on the wagons, recovered on the way, later to become victims of the cold.
Weakened in body and mind, the army left Moscow on October 18th. and 19th. The weather was clear, the nights were cold, when they proceeded in forced marches on the road to Kaluga. Near Maloijorolawez the enemy attempted to bar the way, and an obstinate engagement developed during which the French cavalry suffered severely.
It is true, the Russian battle line was broken, and the way was open, but the French army had received its death-blow.
The order which thus far had kept the army was shaken, and disorder of all kinds commenced.
The retreat now continued in the direction of Borodino, Ghjat, and Wiasma, the same road which had been followed on the march toward Moscow, a road which was laid waste and entirely deserted.
The soldiers, in view of the helplessness which manifested itself, gave up all hope and with dismay looked into a terrible future.
Everywhere surrounded by the enemy who attacked vehemently, the soldiers were forced to remain in their ranks on the highway; whoever straggled was lost–either killed or made prisoner of war.
On the immense tract of land extending from Moscow to Wilna during a march of several days, not a single inhabitant, not a head of cattle, was to be seen, only cities and villages burnt and in ruins. The misery increased from day to day. What little of provisions had been taken along from Moscow was lost, together with the wagons, on the flight after the engagement of Maloijorolawez, and this happened, as we have seen, before the army reached Borodino; the rations which the individual soldier had with him were consumed during the first few days, and thus a complete want made itself felt. The horses, receiving no food, fell in great numbers from exhaustion and starvation; cannon and innumerable wagons, for want of means to transport them, had to be destroyed and left behind.
From the last days of October until mid-December, at which time the army arrived at Wilna, horse meat was the only food of the soldiers; many could not obtain even this, and they died from starvation before the intense cold weather set in. The meat which the soldiers ate was either that of exhausted and sick horses which had not been able to walk any further, or of such as had been lying dead on the road for some time. With the greatest greed and a beastly rage the men threw themselves on the dead animals; they fought without distinction of rank and with a disregard of all military discipline–officers and privates alike–for the possession of the best liked parts of the dead animal–the brain, the heart, and the liver. The weakest had to be contented with any part. Many devoured the meat raw, others pierced it with the bayonet, roasted it at the camp fire and ate it without anything else, often with great relish.
Such was the sad condition when the setting in of extreme cold weather brought the misery–the horrors–to a climax.
During the last days of October, when the army had scarcely reached Borodino, cold winds blew from the North.
The first snowfall was on October 26th., and the snow made the march of the enfeebled army difficult in the extreme.
From that date on the cold increased daily, and the camping over night was terrible; the extremities of those who had no chance to protect themselves with clothes nor to come near the campfire became frozen.
During the first days of November the thermometer had fallen to -12 Reaumur (+4 Fahrenheit).
Derangements of mind were the first pernicious effects of the low temperature that were noticed.
The first effect on the brain in the strong and healthy ones, as well as in the others, was loss of memory.
Von Scherer noticed that, with the beginning of the cold weather, many could not remember the names of the best known, the everyday things, not even the eagerly longed for eatables could they name, or name correctly; many forgot their own names and were no longer able to recognize their nearest comrades and friends. Others had become completely feebleminded, their whole expression was that of stupidity. And those of a stronger constitution, who had resisted the effects of cold on body and mind, became deeply horrified on observing, in addition to their own sufferings, how the mental faculties of the best men, hitherto of strong will power, had become impaired, and how these unfortunates sooner or later, yet gradually, with lucid intervals of a few moments’ duration, invariably became completely insane.
The intense cold enfeebled, first of all, the brain of those whose health had already suffered, especially of those who had had dysentery, but soon, while the cold increased daily, its pernicious effect was noticed in all.
The internal vessels, especially those of the brain and the lungs, in many became congested to such a degree that all vital activity was paralyzed.
On necropsy, these vessels of the brain and lungs and the right heart were found to be bloated and stretched; in one case the different vessels of the brain were torn and quite an amount of blood was effused between the meninges and the brain, in most cases more or less serum had collected in the cavities.
The corpses were white as snow, while the central organs in every case were hyperaemic.
At the beginning, while the cold was still tolerable, the effect of the humors from the surface of the body to the central organs had caused only a slight derangement of the functions of these organs, like dyspnoea, mental weakness, in some more or less indifference, a disregard of their surroundings; in short, all those symptoms of what was called at that time “Russian simpleton.”
Now all actions of the afflicted manifested mental paralysis and the highest degree of apathy.
This condition resembles that of extreme old age, when mind and body return to the state of childhood.
The bodies of those suffering from intense cold were shriveled and wrinkled. Men formerly models of bodily and mental strength, hardened in war, now staggered along, leaning on a stick, wailing and lamenting childlike, begging for a piece of bread, and if something to eat was given to them they burst out in really childish joy, not seldom shedding tears.
The faces of these unfortunates were deadly pale, the features strangely distorted. Lads resembled men of 80 years of age and presented a cretin-like appearance; the lips were bluish, the eyes dull, without luster, and constantly lachrymal; the veins very small, scarcely visible; the extremities cold; the pulse could not be felt, neither at the radius nor at the temple bone, somnolency was general.
Often it happened that the moment they sank to the ground the lower extremities became paralyzed; soon after that, a few drops of blood from the nose indicated the moribund condition.
Severed were all bonds of brotherly love, extinguished all human feeling toward those who, from exhaustion, had fallen on the road.
Many men, among them his former best comrades and even relatives, would fall upon such an unfortunate one to divest him of his clothing and other belongings, to leave him naked on the snow, inevitably to die.
The impulse of self-preservation overmastered everything in them.
During the second half of November, and more so during the first days of December, especially on the 8th., 9th., and 10th., when the army arrived at Wilna, the cold had reached the lowest degree; during the night from December 9th. to December 10th. the thermometer showed -32 R (-40 F.). The cold air caused severe pain in the eyes, resembling that of strong pressure. The eyes, weakened by the constant sight of snow, suffered greatly under these circumstances.
Many were blinded to such an extent that they could not see one step forward, could recognize nothing and had to find their way, like the blind in general, with the aid of a stick. Many of these fell during the march and became stiffened at once.
During this period von Scherer noticed that those who had been suffering very much from cold would die quickly when they had fallen to the frozen, ice-covered ground; the shaking due to the fall probably causing injury to the spinal cord, resulting in sudden general paralysis of the lower extremities, the bladder and the intestinal tract being affected to the extent of an involuntary voiding of urine and feces.
Surgeon-major von Keller stated to von Scherer the following case: “I was lying near Wilna, it was during the first days of December, during one of the coldest nights, together with several German officers, on the road close to a camp fire, when a military servant approached us asking permission to bring his master, a French officer of the guards, to our fire.
“This permission was willingly granted, and two soldiers of the guard brought a tall and strong man of about thirty years of age whom they placed on the ground between themselves.
“When the Frenchman learned of the presence of a surgeon he narrated that something quite extraordinary had happened to him.
“Notwithstanding the great general misery, he had thus far been cheerful and well, but half an hour previous his feet had stiffened and he had been unable to walk, and now he had no longer any sensation from the toes up the legs.
“I examined him and found that his feet were completely stiff, white like marble, and ice cold.
“The officer was well dressed and, notwithstanding his pitiful condition, more cheerful than myself and my comrades.
“Soon he felt a strong desire to urinate, but was unable to do so.
“With great relish he ate a large piece of horse flesh which had been roasted at the fire, but soon complained of great illness.
“His cheerfulness changed suddenly to a sensation of great distress. Ischuria persisted for several hours and caused him great pain; later on during the night, he involuntarily voided feces and a large amount of urine. He slept a great deal, the breathing was free, but at dawn he fell into a helpless condition, and, at daybreak, before we had left the fire, this strong man, who eight to ten hours before had been in good health, died.”
Most excellent and ingenious men in the prime of manhood all suffered more or less from the cold; with the exception of a few cases, the senses of all were, if not entirely deranged, at least weakened. The longest and sometimes complete resistance to the cold was offered by those who had always been of a cheerful disposition, especially those who had not become discouraged by the great privations and hardships, who ate horse flesh with relish and who in general had adapted themselves to circumstances.
One of the Wuerttembergian officers, a man of considerable military knowledge and experience, was attacked, a few days before reaching Wilna, with so pronounced a loss of sensation that he only vegetated, moving along in the column like a machine.
He had no bodily sickness, no fever, was fairly well in strength, had never or rarely been in want, but his whole sensory system was seriously affected by the cold.
Von Scherer saw him, after he arrived at an inn in Wilna, somewhat recovered by warmth and food, but acting childishly.
While he ate the food placed before him he would make terrible grimaces, crying or laughing for minutes at a time.
His constitution badly shaken, but gradually improving, he returned home, and it took a long time before he recovered completely.
All traces of his sickness disappeared finally, and as active as ever he attended his former duties.
Another officer, with whom von Scherer traveled a few days between Krasnoe and Orscha, had not until then suffered any real want.
He rode in a well-closed carriage drawn by strong horses, had two soldiers as servants, was well dressed and suffered, therefore, much less than others. Especially was he well protected from the cold, yet this had a severe effect on him. His mind became deranged, he did not recognize von Scherer with whom he had been on intimate terms for years, nor could he call either of his servants by name; he would constantly run alongside the carriage, insisting that it belonged to the French emperor and that he was entrusted to guard his majesty.
Only when he had fallen asleep, or by force, was von Scherer able, with the aid of the two servants, to place him in the carriage.
His mental condition became worse every day; von Scherer had to leave him.
This officer reached Wilna, where he was made a prisoner and soon died in captivity.
Many more cases resembling these two were observed by von Scherer, and other army surgeons reported instances of the like effect of cold.
Surgeon General von Schmetter had remained with the Crown Prince of Wuerttemberg in Wilna, while the army marched to Moscow.
He reported many cases of unfortunates whom he had received in the hospital in Wilna, who by cold and misery of all kinds had been reduced to a pitiful state–men formerly of a vigorous constitution presented a puerile appearance and had become demented.
A cavalryman of the regiment Duke Louis, who, during February, 1813, had been admitted into the hospital of Wilna, suffering from quiet mania without being feverish, was constantly searching for something.
Hands and feet had been frozen. He became ill with typhus and was more or less delirious for two weeks.
After the severity of the sickness had abated he again began to search anxiously for something, and after the fever had left him he explained that thirty thousand florins, which he had brought with him to the hospital, had been taken away.
It was learned that this cavalryman had been sent, together with other comrades, with dispatches to Murat; that these men had defended Murat with great bravery when he was in danger in the battle of Borodino.
Murat, in recognition of their bravery, which had saved him, had given them a wagon with gold, which they were to divide among themselves.
The share of each of these cavalrymen amounted to over thirty thousand florins, and the gold was transported on four horses, but these horses, for want of food, had broken down under the load, and the gold had fallen into the hands of the Cossacks.
The patient became quite ecstatic when, during his convalescence, he was told that he had brought no gold with him into the hospital; only gradually could he be made to understand that he had been mistaken.
[Illustration]
He said, however, that he could not recollect having been robbed during the retreat, although this fact had been testified to by two witnesses.
Two years after he had left the hospital and quitted the military service, when he was perfectly well and vigorous again, he recollected that on a very cold day he had been taken prisoner by Cossacks, who had left him, naked and unconscious, in the snow.
He could not remember how and when he had come into the hospital. Notwithstanding all these later recollections, he still imagined from time to time that he had brought the gold with him into the hospital.
Surgeon General von Schmetter reported further the case of a cavalryman of the King’s regiment who, like many others, had returned from Russia in an imbecile condition.
He spoke alternately, or mixed up, Polish, Russian, and German; he had to be fed like a child, could not remember his name or the name of his native place, and died from exhaustion eight days after admittance into the hospital.
On necropsy of the quite wrinkled body, the cerebral vessels were found full of blood, the ventricles full of serum. On the surface of the brain between the latter and the meninges were found several larger and smaller sacs filled with lymph, the spinal canal full of serum; in the spinal cord plain traces of inflammation. In the lungs there was much dark coagulated blood, and likewise in the vena cava; in the stomach and intestines, many cicatrices; the mesenteric glands and pancreas were much degenerated and filled with pus; the rectum showed many cicatrices and several ulcers.
In the hospital of Mergentheim eight necropsies were held on corpses of soldiers who had returned mentally affected in consequence of exposure to extreme cold. Similar conditions had presented themselves in all these cases.
Surgeon General von Kohlreuter attended an infantry officer who had arrived at Inorawlow, in Poland, where the remainder of the Wuerttembergian corps had rallied. He showed no special sickness, had no fever, but fell into complete apathy. For a long time he had great weakness of mind, but recovered completely in the end.
Of another patient of this kind, an officer of the general staff, who had been treated after that fatal retreat from Moscow, von Kohlreuter reports that later on he recovered completely from the mental derangement, but died on his return, near the borders of Saxony, from exhaustion.
An infantry officer became mentally deranged sometime after he had returned to his home; it took a long time, but finally he recovered without special medical aid.
Recovery of such cases was accomplished by time, a mild climate, by social intercourse, and good nourishment; many of them, on the way through Germany and before they reached their own home, had completely regained their mental faculties, and only in a small number of cases did it take a long period of time and medication before recovery was assured.
The effect of intense cold on wounds was very severe: Violent inflammation, enormous swelling, gangraene–the latter often due to the impossibility of proper care. Larger wounds sometimes could not be dressed on the retreat, and while the cold weather lasted gangraene and death followed in quick succession. The effect of cold was noticed also on wounds which had healed and cicatrized.
Von Happrecht, an officer of the regiment Duke Louis, had been wounded in the foot by a cannon ball in the battle of Borodino on September 7th., and Surgeon-General von Kohlreuter had amputated it. Fairly strong and cheerful, this officer arrived safely at the Beresina. The passage over this river was, as is well known, very dangerous, and von Happrecht had to wait, exposed to cold, for some time before he could cross. Soon after traversing on horseback he felt as if he had lost the stump; he had no sensation in the leg the foot of which had been amputated. Unfortunately, he approached a fire to warm himself and felt a severe pain in the stump; extensive inflammation, with swelling, set in; gangraene followed and, notwithstanding most skillful attendance, he died soon after his arrival at Wilna.
So far von Scherer. Beaupre, speaking of his own observations of the effects of extreme cold, gives the following account:
Soldiers unable to go further fell and resigned themselves to death, in that frightful state of despair which is caused by the total loss of moral and physical force, which was aggravated to the utmost by the sight of their comrades stretched lifeless on the snow. During a retreat so precipitate and fatal, in a country deprived of its resources, amid disorder and confusion, the sad physician was forced to remain an astonished spectator of evils he could not arrest, to which he could apply no remedy. The state of matters remarkably affected the moral powers. The consternation was general. Fear of not escaping the danger was very naturally allied with the desperate idea of seeing one’s country no more. None could flatter himself that his courage and strength would suffice so that he would be able to withstand privations and sufferings beyond human endurance. Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards, those from the temperate and southern parts of France, obliged to brave an austere climate unknown to them, directed their thoughts toward their country and with good reasons regretted the beauty of the heaven, the softness of the air of the regions of their birth.
Nostalgia was common…. The army was but three days from Smolensk when the heavens became dark, and snow began to fall in great flakes, in such a quantity that the air was obscured. The cold was then felt with extreme severity; the northern wind blew impetuously into the faces of the soldiers and incommoded many who were no longer able to see. They strayed, fell into the snow–above all, when night surprised them–and thus miserably perished.
Disbanded regiments were reduced to almost nothing by the loss of men continually left behind either on the roads or in the bivouacs.
Of the days of Smolensk he writes: In the streets one met with none but sick and wounded men asking for hospitals, soldiers of every sort, of every nation, going and coming, some of them trying to find a place where provisions were sold or distributed; others taciturn, incapable of any effort, absorbed by grief, half dead with cold, awaiting their last hour. On all sides there were complaints and groans, dead and dying soldiers, all of which presented a picture that was still further darkened by the ruinous aspect of the city…. At Smolensk Beaupre himself had a narrow escape from freezing to death; he narrates: During the frightful night when we left Smolensk I felt much harassed; toward 5 in the morning, a feeling of lassitude impelled me to stop and rest. I sat down on the trunk of a birch, beside eight frozen corpses, and soon experienced an inclination to sleep, to which I yielded the more willingly as at that moment it seemed delicious. Fortunately I was aroused from that incipient somnolency–which infallibly would have brought on torpor–by the cries and oaths of two soldiers who were violently striking a poor exhausted horse that had fallen down.
I emerged from that state with a sort of shock.
The sight of what was beside me strongly recalled to my mind the danger to which I exposed myself; I took a little brandy and started to run to remove the numbness of my legs, the coldness and insensibility of which were as if they had been immersed in an iced bath.
He then describes his experience in similar cases: It happened three or four times that I assisted some of those unfortunates who had just fallen and began to doze, to rise again and endeavored to keep them in motion after having given them a little sweetened brandy.
It was in vain; they could neither advance nor support themselves, and they fell again in the same place, where of necessity they had to be abandoned to their unhappy lot. Their pulse was small and imperceptible. Respiration, infrequent and scarcely sensible in some, was attended in others by complaints and groans. Sometimes the eyes were open, fixed, dull, wild, and the brain was seized by a quiet delirium; in other instances the eyes were red and manifested a transient excitement of the brain; there was marked delirium in these cases. Some stammered incoherent words, others had a reserved and convulsive cough. In some blood flowed from the nose and ears; they agitated their limbs as if groping. (This description of Beaupre complements the account given by von Scherer.)
Many had their hands, feet, and ears frozen. A great many were mortally stricken when obliged to stop to relieve nature; the arrival of that dreaded moment was in fact very embarrassing, on account of the danger of exposing oneself to the air as well as owing to the numbness of the fingers which rendered them unable to readjust the clothes….
And they traveled day and night, often without knowing where they were.
Ultimately they were obliged to stop, and, complaining, shivering, forced to lie down in the woods, on the roads, in ditches, at the bottom of ravines, often without fire, because they had no wood at hand, nor strength enough to go and cut some in the vicinity; if they succeeded in lighting one, they warmed themselves as they could, and fell asleep without delay.
The first hours of sleep were delightful, but, alas! they were merely the deceitful precursor of death that was waiting for them.
The fire at length became extinct for want of attention or owing to the great blast. Instead of finding safety in the sweets of sleep, they were seized and benumbed by cold, and never saw daylight again….
I have seen them sad, pale, despairing, without arms, staggering, scarce able to sustain themselves, their heads hanging to the right or left, their extremities contracted, setting their feet on the coals, lying down on hot cinders, or falling into the fire, which they sought mechanically, as if by instinct.
Others apparently less feeble, and resolved not to allow themselves to be depressed by misfortune, rallied their powers to avoid sinking; but often they quitted one place only to perish in another.
Along the road, in the adjacent ditches and fields, were perceived human carcasses, heaped up and lying at random in fives, tens, fifteens and twenties, of such as had perished during the night, which was always more murderous than the day.
When no longer able to continue walking, having neither strength nor will power, they fell on their knees.
The muscles of the trunk were the last to lose the power of contraction.
[Illustration: “And never saw daylight again.”]
Many of those unfortunates remained for some time in that posture contending with death.
Once fallen it was impossible for them, even with their utmost efforts, to rise again. The danger of stopping had been universally observed; but, alas! presence of mind and firm determination did not always suffice to ward off mortal attacks made from all directions upon one miserable life!
WIASMA
About a mile and a half from Wiasma the enemy appeared to the left of the road, and his fire happened to strike the midst of the tail of the army, composed of disbanded soldiers without arms, with wounded and sick among them, and women and children. Every artillery discharge of the Russians caused frightful cries and a frightful commotion in the helpless mass.
And the rear guard, in trying to make them advance, ill-treated them, the soldiers who had clung to the flag assumed the right to despise those who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, had abandoned it.
Of the old generals of Davout some had been killed, Friant was so severely wounded that he could not be about, Compans had been wounded in the arm, Moraud in the head, but these two, the former with one arm in a sling, the other with a bandaged head, were on horseback, surrounding the marshal commanding the first corps which had been reduced to 15 thousand from 20 thousand at Moshaisk, from 28 thousand in Moscow, and from 72 thousand crossing the Niemen. The remaining 15 thousand were all old warriors whose iron constitution had triumphed.
The battle of Wiasma took place on the 2d. of November. The Russians under Miloradovitch had 100 cannon, whereas the French under Ney, Davout, and the wounded generals named above, had only 40. This day cost the French 1,500 to 1,800 men in killed and wounded, and, as mentioned, these were of the oldest and best; the loss of the Russians was twice that number, but their wounded were not lost, while it was impossible to save a single one of the French, for the latter had no attendance at all; the cold being very severe it killed them, and those who did not perish by the frost were put to death by the cruel, ferocious Russian peasants.
Entering Wiasma at night, nothing in the way of provisions was found; the guard and the corps which had been there before the battle had devoured everything. No provisions were left of those taken along from Moscow. The army passed a sombre and bitter cold night in a forest; great fires were lighted, horse meat was roasted, and the soldiers of Prince Eugene and of Marshal Davout, especially the latter who had been on their feet for three days, slept profoundly around great camp-fires. During two weeks they had been on duty to cover the retreat and during this time had lost more than one half of their number.
Napoleon arrived at Dorogobouge on November 5th., the Prince Eugene on the 6th., the other corps on the 7th. and 8th.
Until then the frost had been severe but not yet fatal. All of a sudden, on the 9th., the weather changed, and there was a terrible snow-storm.
On their way to Moscow the regiments had traversed Poland during a suffocating heat and had left their warm clothing in the magazines.
Some soldiers had taken furs with them from Moscow, but had sold them to their officers.
Well nourished, they could have stood the frost, but living on a little flour diluted with water, on horse meat roasted at the camp fire, sleeping on the ground without shelter, they suffered frightfully. We shall later on speak more in detail of the miserable clothing.
The first snow which had been falling after they had left Dorogobouge had seriously increased the general misery. Except among the soldiers of the rear guard which had been commanded with inflexible firmness by Davout, and which was now led by Ney, the sense of duty began to be lost by almost all soldiers.
As we have learned, all the wounded had to be left to their fate, and soldiers who had been charged to escort Russian prisoners relieved themselves of their charge by shooting these prisoners dead.
The horses had not been shod in Russian fashion for traveling on the ice. The army had come during the summer without any idea of returning during the winter; the horses slipped on the ice, those of the artillery were too feeble to draw cannon even of small calibre, they were beaten unmercifully until they perished; not only cannons and ammunition had to be left, but the number of vehicles carrying necessities of life diminished from day to day. The soldiers lived on the fallen horses; when night came the dead animals were cut to pieces by means of the sabre, huge portions were roasted at immense fires, the men devoured them and went to sleep around the fires. If the Cossacks did not disturb their dearly bought sleep the men would awake; some half burnt, others finding themselves lying in the mud which had formed around them, and many would not rise any more. General von Kerner, of the Wuerttembergian troops had slept in a barn during the night from November 7th. to November 8th. Coming out at daybreak he saw his men in the plain as they had lain down around a fire the evening before, frozen and dead. The survivors would depart, hardly glancing at the unfortunates who had died or were dying, and for whom they could do nothing.
The snow would soon cover them, and small eminences marked the places where these brave soldiers had been sacrificed for a foolish enterprise.
It was under these circumstances that Ney, the man of the greatest energy and of a courage which could not be shaken by any kind of suffering, took command of the rear guard, relieving Davout whose inflexible firmness and sense of honor and duty were not less admirable than the excellent qualities of Ney. The bravest of the brave, as Napoleon had called Ney, had an iron constitution, he never seemed to be tired nor suffering from any ailment; he passed the night without shelter, slept or did not sleep, ate or did not eat, without ever being discouraged; most of the time he was on his feet in the midst of his soldiers; he did not find it beneath the dignity of a Marshal of France, when necessary, to gather 50 or 100 men about him and lead them, like a simple captain of infantry, against the enemy under fire of musketry, calm, serene, believing himself invulnerable and being apparently so indeed; he did not find it incompatible with his rank to take up the musket of a soldier who had fallen and to fire at the enemy like a private. There is a great painting in the gallery of Versailles representing him in such an action. He had never been wounded in battle. And this great hero was executed in the morning of December 7th., 1815, in the garden of the Luxembourg.
Louis XVIII, this miserable and insignificant man of legitimate royal blood who had never rendered any service to France, wanted revenge–Ney was arrested and condemned by the Chamber of Peers after the marshals had refused to condemn him. His wife pleaded in vain for his life, the king remained inflexible. Ney was simply shot by 12 poor soldiers commanded for the execution. After the marshal had sunk down, an Englishman suddenly rode up at a gallop and leaped over the fallen hero, to express the triumph of the victors. It was in as bad taste as everything that England contrived against Napoleon and his men. [Footnote: Brave men were condemned to deportation or were executed; derision and mocking of Napoleon’s generals was the order of the day.]
Among the spectators there was also a Russian general in full uniform and on horseback. Tzar Alexander expelled him from the army after he had heard of it.
The Bourbons commenced a tromocraty which was called, in contrast to the terrorisms of the revolution, the white terror.
Much has been written about the fantastic costume of Murat, but I do not recollect having read the true explanation of it. All writers agree that he was the bravest, the greatest cavalry general. As such he meant to be distinguished from far and near in the midst of the battle where danger was greatest, so that the sight of his person, his exposure to the enemy, should encourage and inspire his soldiers. He rode a very noble white horse and wore a Polish kurtka of light blue velvet which reached down to the knees, embroidered with golden lace, dark red mameluke pantaloons with golden galloons, white gauntlets and a three-cornered general’s hat with white plumes; the saddle was of red velvet and a caparison of the same stuff, all embroidered with gold. The neck of the king was bare, a large white scalloped collar fell over the collar of the kurtka. A strong black full beard gave a martial expression to his face with the fiery eyes and regular features. Sometimes he wore a biretta with a diamond agraffe and a high plume of heron feathers. Very seldom he appeared in the uniform of a marshal.
And this other great hero, who, like Ney, had never been wounded in battle, was executed by order of the court of Naples on October 13th., 1815, in the hall of castle Pizzo.
VOP
In order to give an idea of the great difficulties the soldiers had to face, and examples of their heroic behavior under trying circumstances, let us relate the disaster of Vop.
While Napoleon, with the imperial guard, the corps of Marshal Davout and a mass of stragglers, all escorted by Marshal Ney, was marching on the road to Smolensk, Prince Eugene had taken the road to Doukhowtchina. The prince had with him 6 or 7 thousand men under arms, including the Italian guard, some Bavarian cavalry which still had their horses and their artillery mounted, and also many stragglers, with these a number of families who had been following the Italian division.
At the end of the first day’s journey–it was on November 8th.–near the castle Zazale, they hoped to find at this castle some provisions and an abode for the night. A great cold had set in, and when they came to a hill the road was so slippery that it was almost impossible to negotiate the elevation with even the lightest load. Detaching horses from the pieces in order to double and treble the teams they succeeded in scaling the height with cannons of small calibre, but they were forced to abandon the larger ones.
The men being exhausted as well as the horses they felt humiliated at being obliged to leave their best pieces. While they had exerted themselves with such sad results, Platow had followed them with his Cossacks and light cannons mounted on sleighs and incessantly fired into the French. The commander of the Italian artillery, General Anthouard, was severely wounded and was compelled to give up his command.
A gloomy night was passed at the castle Zazale.
On the morning of the 9th. they left at an early hour to cross the Vop, a little rivulet during the summer but now quite a river, at least four feet deep and full of mud and ice.
The pontooneers of Prince Eugene had gone ahead, working during the night to construct a bridge, but frozen and hungry they had suspended their work for a few hours, to finish it after a short rest.
At daybreak those most anxious to cross went on the unfinished bridge which they thought was completed.
A heavy mist prevented them from recognizing their error until the first ones fell into the icy water emitting piercing cries. Finally horses and men waded through the water–some succeeded, other succumbed.
It would lead too far to give here a full description of the distressing scenes, the difficulty of passing with artillery and the mostly vain attempts to bring over the baggage wagons. But, to cap the climax, there arrived 3 or 4 thousand Cossacks shouting savagely. With the greatest difficulty only was the rear guard able to keep them at a distance so that they could not come near enough to make use of their lances. Their artillery, however, caused veritable desolation.
Among the poor fugitives from Moscow there were a number of Italian and French women; these unfortunates stood at the border of the river, crying and embracing their children, but not daring to wade through it. Brave soldiers, full of humanity, took the little ones in their arms and passed with them, some repeating this two and three times, in order to bring all the children safely over. These desolate families, not being able to save their vehicles, lost with them the means of subsistence brought from Moscow. All the baggage, the entire artillery with the exception of seven or eight pieces, had been lost, and a thousand men had been killed by the fire of the Cossacks.
This dreadful event on the retreat from Moscow is called the disaster of Vop and was the precursor of another disaster of the same nature, but a hundred times more frightful, the disaster of the Beresina.
* * * * *
There was another cause of death of which we have not spoken yet: this was the action of the heat at the campfires. Anxious to warm themselves, most of the soldiers hastened to bring their limbs near the flame; but this sudden exposure to extreme heat, after having suffered from the other extreme–cold–was acting on the feeble circulation in the tissues and produced gangraene of the feet, the hands, even of the face, causing paralysis either partial, of the extremities, or general, of the whole body.
Only those were saved who had been able to keep up their circulation by means of hot drinks or other stimulants and who, noticing numbness, had rubbed the affected parts with snow. Those who did not or could not resort to these precautions found themselves paralyzed, or stricken with sudden gangraene, in the morning when the camp broke up.
The hospitals of Koenigsberg admitted about 10 thousand soldiers of Napoleon’s army, only a small number of whom had been wounded, most of them with frozen extremities, who had, as the physicians of that time called it, a pest, the fever of congelation which was terribly contagious.
The heroic Larrey although exhausted from fatigue had come to these hospitals to take care of the sick, but he became infected with the contagion himself and was taken sick.
A great calamity was the want of shoes; we have seen that this was already felt in Moscow, before they set out on the endless march over ice and snow.
The soldiers had their feet wrapped in rags, pieces of felt or leather, and when a man had fallen on the road some of his comrades would cut off his feet and carry them to the next camp fire to remover the rags–for their own use.
But the general appearance of the emaciated soldiers with long beards, and faces blackened by the smoke of camp-fires, the body wrapped in dirty rags of wearing apparel brought from Moscow, was such that it was difficult to recognize them as soldiers.
And the vermin! Carpon, a surgeon-major of the grand army, in describing the days of Wilna which were almost as frightful as the disaster of the Beresina, speaks on this subject. It is revolting. Strange to say, it is hardly ever mentioned in the medical history of wars, although every one who has been in the field is quite familiar with it.
At last I have found–in Holzhausen’s book–a description of the most revolting lice plague (phtheiriasis) from which, according to his valet, Constant, even the emperor was not exempted. As a matter of course under the circumstances–impossibility of bodily cleanliness–this vermin developed in a way which baffles description. Suckow, a Wuerttembergian first lieutenant, speaks of it as causing intolerable distress, disturbing the sleep at the campfire. Johann von Borcke became alarmed when he discovered that his whole body was eaten up by these insects. A French colonel relates that in scratching himself he tore a piece of flesh from the neck, but that the pain caused by this wound produced a sensation of relief.
SMOLENSK
All the corps marched to Smolensk where they expected to reach the end of all their misery and to find repose, food, shelter; in fact, all they were longing for.
Napoleon entered the city with his guards and kept the rest of the army, including the stragglers, out of doors until arrangements could have been made for the regular distribution of rations and quarters. But together with the stragglers the mass of the army became unmanageable and resorted to violence.
Seeing that the guards were given the preference they broke out in revolt, entered by force and pillaged the magazines. “The magazines are pillaged!” was the general cry of terror and despair. Every one was running to grasp something to eat.
Finally, something like order was established to save some of the provisions for the corps of Prince Eugene and Marshal Ney who arrived after fighting constantly to protect the city from the troops of the enemy. They received in their turn eatables and a little rest, not under shelter but in the streets, where they were protected, not from the frost, but from the enemy.
There were no longer any illusions. The army having hoped to find shelter and protection, subsistence, clothes and, above all, shoes, at Smolensk, they found nothing of all this and learned that they had to leave, perhaps the next day, to recommence the interminable march without abode for the night, without bread to eat and constantly righting while exhausted, with the cruel certainty that if wounded they would be the prey of wolves and vultures.
This prospect made them all desperate; they saw the abyss, and still the worst was yet in store for them: Beresina and Wilna!
Napoleon left Smolensk on November 14th. The cold had become more intense–21 deg. Reaumur (16 deg. below zero Fahrenheit)–this is the observation of Larrey who had a thermometer attached to his coat; he was the only one who kept a record of the temperature.
The cold killed a great many, and the road became covered with dead soldiers resting under the snow.
To the eternal honor of the most glorious of all armies be it said that it was only at the time when the misery had surpassed all boundaries, when the soldiers had to camp on the icy ground with an empty stomach, their limbs paralyzed in mortal rigor, that the dissolution began.
It was even after the heroic battle of Wiasma that they fought day for day.
It was not the cold which caused the proud army to disband, but hunger.
Provisions could nowhere be found; all horses perished, and with them the possibility of transporting food and ammunition.
And it is one thing to suffer cold and hunger, traveling under ordinary circumstances, and another to suffer thus and at the same time being followed by the enemy.
BERESINA
In order to understand the disaster of the Beresina it is necessary to cast a glance at the condition of Napoleon’s army at that time.
After the battle at Krasnoe, Napoleon at Orscha, on November 19th., happy to have found a place of safety at last, with well furnished magazines, made a new attempt to rally the army by means of a regular distribution of rations. A detachment of excellent gendarmes had come from France and was employed to do police duty, to engage everybody, either by persuasion or by force, to join his corps. These brave men, accustomed to suppress disorder in the rear of the army, had never witnessed anything like the condition with which they were obliged to deal at this time. They were dismayed. All their efforts were in vain. Threats, promises of rations if the soldiers would fall in line, were of no avail whatever. The men, whether armed or not, thought it more convenient, above all more safe, to care for themselves instead of again taking up the yoke of honor, thereby taking the risk of being killed, or wounded,–which amounted to the same thing–they would not think of sacrificing their individual self for the sake of the whole. Some of the disbanded soldiers had retained their arms, but only to defend themselves against the Cossacks and to be better able to maraud. They lived from pillaging, taking advantage of the escort of the army, without rendering any service. [Illustration] In order to warm themselves they would put fire to houses occupied by wounded soldiers, many of whom perished in the flames in consequence. They had become real ferocious beasts. Among these marauders were only very few old soldiers, for most of the veterans remained with the flag until death.
Napoleon addressed the guards, appealing to their sense of duty, saying that they were the last to uphold military honor, that they, above all, had to set the example to save the remainder of the army which was in danger of complete dissolution; that if they, the guards, would become guilty, they would be more guilty than any of the other corps, because they had no excuse to complain of neglect, for what few supplies had been at the disposal of the army, their wants had always been considered ahead of the rest of the army, that he could resort to punishments, could have shot the first of the old grenadiers who would leave the ranks, but that he preferred to rely on their virtue as warriors to assure their devotedness. The grenadiers expressed their assent and gave promises of good conduct. All surviving old grenadiers remained in the ranks, not one of them had disbanded. Of the 6 thousand who had crossed the Niemen, about 3,500 survived, the others had succumbed to fatigue or frost, very few had fallen in battle.
The disbanded soldiers of the rest of the army, having in view another long march, with great sufferings to endure, were not disposed to change their ways. They now needed a long rest, safety, and abundance, to make them recognize military discipline again. The order to distribute rations among those who had rallied around the flag could not be kept up for more than a few hours. The magazines were pillaged, as they had been pillaged at Smolensk. The forty-eight hours’ stay at Orscha was utilized for rest and to nourish a few men and the horses.
In these days Napoleon was as indefatigable as he ever had been as young Bonaparte. His proclamation of the 19th. did not remain quite unheeded even among the disbanded, but, on the march again, the nearer they came to the Beresina the more pronounced became the lack of discipline. In the following description I avail myself of the classical work of Thiers’ “Histoire du Consulat et de I’Empire.”
The only bridge over the Beresina, at Borisow, had been burned by the Russians. It was as by miracle that General Corbineau met a Polish peasant who indicated a place–near the village Studianka–where the Beresina could be forded by horses. Napoleon, informed of this fact on November 28th., at once ordered General Eble to construct the bridge and on November 25th., at 1 o’clock in the morning, he issued orders to Oudinot to have his corps ready for crossing the river. The moment had arrived when the great engineer, the venerable General Eble, was to crown his career by an immortal service.
He had saved six cases containing tools, nails, clamps, and all kinds of iron pieces needed for the construction of trestle bridges. In his profound foresight he had also taken along two wagon-loads of charcoal, and he had under his command 400 excellent pontooneers upon whom he could reply absolutely.
General Eble has been described as the model of an officer, on account of his imposing figure and his character.
Eble and Larrey were the two men whom the whole army never ceased to respect and to obey, even when they demanded things which were almost impossible. General Eble then with his 400 men departed in the evening of November 24th. for Borisow, followed by the clever General Chasseloup who had some sappers with him, but without their tools. General Chasseloup was a worthy associate of the illustrious chief of the pontooneers. They marched all night, arriving at Borisow on the 25th., at 5 o’clock in the morning. There they left some soldiers in order to deceive the Russians by making them believe that the bridge was to be constructed below Borisow. Eble with his pontooneers, however, marched through swamps and woods along the river as far as Studianka, arriving there during the afternoon of the 25th. Napoleon in his impatience wanted the bridges finished on that day, an absolute impossibility; it could not be done until the 26th., by working all night, and not to rest until this was accomplished was the firm resolution of these men who by that time had marched two days and two nights. General Eble spoke to his pontooneers, telling them that the fate of the army was in their hands. He inspired them with noble sentiments and received the promise of the most absolute devotedness. They had to work in the bitter cold weather–severe frost having suddenly set in–all night and during the next day, in the water, in the midst of floating ice, probably under fire of the enemy, without rest, almost without time to swallow some boiled meat; they had not even bread or salt or brandy. This was the price at which the army could be saved. Each and every one of the pontooneers pledged himself to their general, and we shall see how they kept their word.
Not having time to fell trees and to cut them into planks, they demolished the houses of the unfortunate village Studianka and took all the wood which could serve for the construction of bridges; they forged the iron needed to fasten the planks and in this way they made the trestles. At daybreak of the 26th. they plunged these trestles into the Beresina. Napoleon, together with some of his generals, Murat, Berthier, Eugene, Caulaincourt, Duroc, and others, had hastened to Studianka on this morning to witness the progress of Eble’s work. Their faces expressed the greatest anxiety, for at this moment the question was whether or not the master of the world would be taken prisoner by the Russians. He watched the men working, exerting all their might in strength and intelligence. But it was by no means sufficient to plunge bravely into the icy water and to fasten the trestles, the almost superhuman work had to be accomplished in spite of the enemy whose outposts were visible on the other side of the river. Were there merely some Cossacks, or was there a whole army corps? This was an important question to solve. One of the officers, Jacqueminot, who was as brave as he was intelligent, rode into the water, traversed the Beresina, the horse swimming part of the way, and reached the other shore. On account of the ice the landing was very difficult. In a little wood he found some Cossacks, but altogether only very few enemies could be seen. Jacqueminot then turned back to bring the good news to the emperor. As it was of the greatest importance to secure a prisoner to obtain exact information about what was to be feared or to be hoped, the brave Jacqueminot once more crossed the Beresina, this time accompanied by some determined cavalry men. They overpowered a Russian outpost, the men sitting around a fire, took a corporal with them, and brought this prisoner before Napoleon who learned to his great satisfaction that Tchitchakoff with his main force was before Borisow to prevent the passage of the French, and that at Studianka there was only a small detachment of light troops.
It was necessary to take advantage of these fortunate circumstances. But the bridges were not ready. The brave General Corbineau with his cavalry brigade crossed the river under the above-described difficulties, and established himself in the woods. Napoleon mounted a battery of 40 cannons on the left shore, and now the French could flatter themselves to be masters of the right shore while the bridges were made, and that their whole army would be able to cross. Napoleon’s star seemed to brighten again, the officers grouped around him, saluting with expressions of joy, such as they had not shown for a long time.
All was now depending on the completion of the bridges, for there were two to be constructed, each 600 feet in length; one on the left for wagons, the other, on the right, for infantry and cavalry. A hundred pontooneers had gone into the water and with the aid of little floats built for this purpose, had commenced the fixation of the trestles. The water was freezing and formed ice crusts around their shoulders, arms, and legs, ice crusts which adhered to the flesh and caused great pain. They suffered without complaining, without appearing to be affected, so great was their ardor. The river at that point was 300 feet wide and with 23 trestles for each bridge the two shores could be united. In order to transport first the troops, all efforts were concentrated on the construction of the bridge to the right–that is, the one for infantry and cavalry–and at 1 o’clock in the afternoon it was ready.
About 9 thousand men of the corps of Marshal Oudinot passed over the first bridge and under great precautions took two cannons along. Arrived on the other side, Oudinot faced some troops of infantry which General Tschaplitz, the commander of the advance guard of Tchitchakoff, had brought there. The engagement was very lively but of short duration. The French killed 200 men of the enemy and were able to establish themselves in a good position, from where they could cover the passage. Time was given now for the passage of enough troops to meet Tchitchakoff, during the rest of the day, the 26th. and the succeeding night. Concerning many details I have to refer to Thiers’ description.
At 4 o’clock in the afternoon the second bridge was completed. Napoleon, on the Studianka side, yet supervised everything; he wanted to remain among the last to cross the bridge. General Eble, without himself taking a moment of rest, had one-half the number of his pontooneers rest on straw while the other half took up the painful task of guarding the bridges, of doing police duty, and of making repairs in case of accidents, until they were relieved by the others. On this day the infantry guards and what remained of cavalry guards marched over the bridge, followed by the artillery train.
Unfortunately, the left bridge, intended for vehicles, shook too much under the enormous weight of wagons following one another without interruption. Pressed as they were, the pontooneers had not had time to shape the timber forming the path, they had to use wood as they found it, and in order to deaden the rumbling of the wagons they had put moss, hemp, straw–in fact, everything they could gather in Studianka–into the crevices. But the horses removed this kind of litter with their feet, rendering the surface of the path very rough, so that it had formed undulations, and at 8 o’clock in the evening three trestles gave way and fell, together with the wagons which they carried, into the Beresina. The heroic pontooneers went to work again, going into the water which was so cold that ice immediately formed anew where it had been broken. With their axes they had to cut holes into the ice to place new trestles six, seven and even eight feet deep into the river were the bridge had given way. At 11 o’clock the bridge was secure again.
General Eble, who had always one relief at work while the other was asleep, took no rest himself. He had extra trestles made in case of another accident. At 2 o’clock in the morning three trestles of the left bridge, that is the one for the vehicles, gave way, unfortunately in the middle of the current, where the water had a depth of seven or eight feet. This time the pontooneers had to accomplish their difficult task in the darkness. The men, shaking from cold and starving, could not work any more. The venerable General Eble, who was not young as they were and had not taken rest as they had, suffered more than they did, but he had the moral superiority and spoke to them, appealing to their devotedness, told them of the certain disaster which would annihilate the whole army if they did not repair the bridges; and his address made a deep impression. With supreme self-denial they went to work again. General Lauriston, who had been sent by the emperor to learn the cause of the new accident, pressed Eble’s hand and, shedding tears, said to him: For God’s sake, hasten! Without showing impatience, Eble, who generally had the roughness of a strong and proud soul, answered with kindness: You see what we are doing, and he turned to his men to encourage, to direct them, and notwithstanding his age–he was 54 years old–he plunged into that icy water, which those young men were hardly able to endure (and this fact is stated by all the historians whose works I have read). At 6 o’clock in the morning (November 27th.) this second accident had been repaired, the artillery train could pass again.
The bridge to the right–for infantry–did not have to endure the same kind of shaking up as the other bridge, and did not for one moment get out of order. If the stragglers and fugitives had obeyed all could have crossed during the night from November 26th. to November 27th. But the attraction of some barns, some straw to lie on, some eatables found at Studianka, had retained a good many on this side of the river. The swamps surrounding the Beresina were frozen, which was a great advantage, enabling the people to walk over them. On these frozen swamps had been lighted thousands of fires, and 10 thousand or 15 thousand individuals had established themselves around them and did not want to leave. Soon they should bitterly regret the loss of a precious opportunity.
In the morning, on November 27th., Napoleon crossed the Beresina, together with all who were attached to his headquarters, and selected for his new headquarters the little village Zawnicky, on the other side of the Beresina. In front of him was the corps of Oudinot. All day long he was on horseback personally to hasten the passage of detachments of the army, somewhat over 5 thousand men under arms. Toward the end of the day the first corps arrived, under Davout, who since Krasnoe had again commanded the rear guard. This was the only corps which still had some military appearance.
The day of November 27th. was occupied to cross the Beresina and to prepare for a desperate resistance, for the Russians could no longer be deceived as to the location of the bridges. At 2 o’clock in the afternoon a third accident happened, again on the bridge to the left. It was soon repaired, but the vehicles arrived in great numbers, and all were pressing forward in such a way that the gendarmes had extraordinary difficulties to enforce some order.
The 9th. corps, that of Marshal Victor, had taken a position between Borisow and Studianka, in order to protect the army at the latter place. It had been foreseen that the crossing would be little interfered with during the first two days, the 26th. and 27th., because Tchitchakoff was as yet ignorant of the real points elected for the bridges, expecting to find the French army below Borisow on the other side of the Beresina. Wittgenstein and Kutusoff had not yet had time to unite and did not sufficiently press the French.
Napoleon had good reasons to expect that the 28th. would be the decisive day. He was resolved to save the army or to perish with it. Taking the greatest pains to deceive Tchitchakoff as long as possible he ordered Marchal Victor to leave the division Partouneaux, which had been reduced by marches and fights from 12 thousand to 4 thousand combatants, at Borisow. Victor with 9 thousand men and 700 to 800 horses was to cover Studianka.
These 9 thousand were the survivors of 24 thousand with whom Victor had left Smolensk to join Oudinot on the Oula. During one month’s marching and in various engagements 10 thousand to 11 thousand had been lost. The bearing, however, of those who survived was excellent, and seeing what was left of the grand army, the glory of which had, not long ago, been the object of their jealousy, in its present condition, they were stricken with pity and asked their oppressed comrades who had almost lost their pride as a result of the misery, what calamity could have befallen them? You will soon be the same as we are, sadly answered the victors of Smolensk and Borodino.
The hour of the supreme crisis had come. The enemy, having now learned the truth, came to attack the French when many of them had not yet crossed the Beresina and were divided between the two sides of the river. Wittgenstein, who with 3 thousand men had followed the corps of Victor, was behind the latter between Borisow and Studianka, and ready with all his might to throw Victor into the Beresina. Altogether, including the forces of Tchitchakoff, there were about 72 thousand Russians, without counting 30 thousand men of Kutusoff in the rear, ready to fall on Victor’s 12 thousand to 13 thousand and Oudinot’s 7 thousand or 8 thousand of the guards; 28 thousand to 30 thousand French were divided between the two shores of the Beresina hampered by 40 thousand stragglers, to fight, during the difficult operation of crossing the Beresina, with 72 thousand partly in front, partly in the rear.
This terrible struggle began in the evening of the 27th. The unfortunate French division of Partouneaux, the best of the three of Victor’s corps, had received orders from Napoleon to remain before Borisow during the 27th., in order to deceive, as long as possible, and to detain Tchitchakoff. In this position Partouneaux was separated from his corps which, as we have seen, was concentrated around Studianka, by three miles of wood and swamps. As could be easily foreseen, Partouneaux was cut off by the arrival of the troops of Platow, Miloradovitch, and Yermaloff, who had followed the French on the road from Orscha to Borisow. In the evening of the 27th. Partouneaux recognized his desperate position. With the immense dangers threatening him were combined the hideous embarrassment of several thousand stragglers who, believing in the passage below Borisow, had massed at that point, with their baggage, awaiting the construction of the bridge. The better to deceive the enemy they had been left in their error, and now they were destined to be sacrificed, together with the division of Partouneaux, on account of the terrible necessity to deceive Tchitchakoff.
When the bullets came from all sides, the confusion soon reached the climax; the three little brigades of Partouneaux forming for defense found themselves entangled with several thousand stragglers and fugitives who clamorously threw themselves into their ranks; the women of the mass, with baggage, especially with their frightful, piercing cries, characterized this scene of desolation. General Partouneaux decided to extricate himself, to open a way or to perish. He was with a thousand men against 40 thousand. Several challenges to surrender he refused, and kept on fighting. The enemy, likewise exhausted, suspended firing toward midnight, being certain to take the last of this handful of braves who resisted so heroically in the morning. With daybreak the Russian generals again challenged General Partouneaux, who was standing upright in the snow with the 400 or 500 of his brigade, remonstrating with him, and he, with desperation in his soul, surrendered. The other two brigades of his division that had been separated from him also laid down their arms. The Russians took about 2 thousand prisoners, that is, the survivors of Partouneaux’s division of 4 thousand, only one battalion of 300 men had succeeded, during the darkness of the night, in making its escape and reaching Studianka.
The army at Studianka had heard, during this cruel night, the sound of the cannonade and fusillade from the direction of Borisow. Napoleon and Victor were in great anxiety; the latter thought that the measure taken, i.e., the sacrifice of his best division, of 4 thousand men who would have been of great value, had been unjustifiable, because after the crossing had begun on the 26th. it was no longer possible to deceive the enemy.
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 Eble 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 Eble, 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 Eble’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 Eble and Marshal Victor to employ all means in order to hasten the passage of those unfortunates. General Eble, 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 Eble 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.
Eble 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 Eble 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 Eble 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 Eble, 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
The threatening barrier had been surmounted, and on went the march to Wilna, without any possibility of a day’s rest, because the miserable remainder of the French army was still followed by light Russian troops.
During the first days after the crossing of the Beresina the supply of food had improved, it was better indeed than at any time during the retreat. They passed through villages which had not suffered from the war, in which the barns were well filled with grain and with feed for the horses, and there lived rich Jews who could sell whatever the soldiers needed. Unfortunately, however, this improved condition lasted only a few days, from November 30th. to December 4th., and before Wilna was reached the want was felt again and made itself felt the more on account of the most intense cold which had set in.
During the few good days the soldiers had eaten roast pork, and all kinds of vegetables, in consequence their weakened digestive tract had been overtaxed so that diarrhoea became prevalent, a most frightful condition during a march on the road, with a temperature of 25 deg. below zero, Reaumur (about 25 deg. below zero, Fahrenheit).
The 6th. of December was a frightful day, although the cold had not yet reached its climax which happened on the 7th. and 8th. of December, namely 28 deg. below zero, Reaumur (31 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit).
[Illustration: “The Gate of Wilna.”]
Holzhausen gives a graphic description of the supernatural silence which reigned and which reminded of the silence in the arctic regions. There was not the slightest breeze, the snowflakes fell vertically, crystal-clear, the snow blinded the eyes, the sun appeared like a red hot ball with a halo, the sign of greatest cold.
The details of the descriptions which Holzhausen has collected from old papers surpass by far all we have learned from von Scherer’s and Beaupre’s writings. And all that Holzhausen relates is verified by names of absolute reliability; it verifies the accounts of the two authors named.
General von Roeder, one of the noblest of the German officers in Napoleon’s army–a facsimile of one of his letters is given in Holzhausen’s book–says about the murderous 7th. of December: “Pilgrims of the Grand Army, who had withstood many a severe frost indeed, dropped like flies, and of those who were well nourished, well clothed–many of these being of the reserve corps having but recently come from Wilna to join the retreating army,–countless numbers fell exactly like the old exhausted warriors who had dragged themselves from Moscow to this place.”
The reserve troops of which Roeder speaks were the division Loison, the last great body of men that had followed the army. They had been in Koenigsberg and had marched from there to Wilna during the month of November, had remained in the latter place until December 4th., when they were sent to protect the retreating soldiers and the Emperor himself, on leaving the wreck of his once grand army at Smorgoni on December 5th.
These troops who thus far had not sustained any hardships, came directly from the warm quarters of Wilna into the terrible cold.
It was quite frightful, says Roeder, to see these men, who a moment before had been talking quite lively, drop dead as if struck by lightning.
D. Geissler, a Weimaranian surgeon, renders a similar report and adds that in some cases these victims suffered untold agonies before they died.
Lieutenant Jacobs states that some said good bye to their comrades and laid down along the road to die, that others acted like maniacs, cursed their fate, fell down, rose again, and fell down once more, never to rise again. Cases like the latter have been described also by First Lieutenant von Schauroth.
Under these circumstances, says Holzhausen, it appears almost incomprehensible that there were men who withstood a misery which surpassed all human dimensions. And still there were such; who by manfully bearing these sufferings, set to others a good example; there were whole troops who, to protect others in pertinacious rear guard fights, opposed the on-pressing enemy.
Wonderful examples of courage and self-denial gave some women, the wife of a Sergeant-Major Martens, who had followed the army, and a Mrs. Basler, who was always active, preparing some food while her husband with others was lying exhausted at the camp fire, and who seldom spoke, never complained. This poor woman lost a son, a drummer boy, who had been wounded at Smolensk. She as well as her husband perished in Wilna.
Sergeant Toenges dragged a blind comrade along–I shall not leave him, he said. Grenadiers, sitting around a fire, had pity on him and tried to relieve his sufferings. Many such examples are enumerated in Holzhausen’s book.
Our highest admiration is due to the conduct of the brave troops of the rear guard who fought the Russians, who sacrificed themselves for the sake of the whole, and, like at Krasnoe and at the Beresina, for their disbanded comrades.
The rearguard was at first commanded by Ney, then, after the 3rd. of December, by Marshal Victor; after the dissolution of Victor’s corps at Smorgoni and Krapowna, by Loison and, finally, near Wilna, by Wrede with his Bavarians.
Count Hochberg has given a classical description of the life in the rear guard; it is the most elevating description of greatness, of human magnanimity, and it fills us with admiration for the noble, the brave soldier.
Interesting is the engagement at Malodeszno. A certain spell hangs over this fight; here perished two Saxon regiments that had gloriously fought at the Beresina.
The scene was a romantic park with the castle of Count Oginsky where Napoleon had had his headquarters on the preceding day, and from where he dated his for ever memorable 29th. bulletin in which he told the world the ruin of his army.
Toward 2 o’clock in the afternoon the enemy attacked the division of Girard who was supported by Count Hochberg. Then the Russians attacked the park itself. The situation was very serious, because the Badensian troops under Hochberg had only a few cartridges and could not properly answer the fire of the enemy. Night came, and the darkness, writes a Badensian sergeant, was of great advantage to us, for the Russians stood against a very small number, the proportion being one battalion to 100 men. Count Hochberg led his brigade, attacking with the bayonet, and nearly became a victim of his courage. The Badensian troops drove the enemy away, but they themselves received the death blow. Count Hochberg said he had no soldiers left whom he could command.
And now it was the division Loison which formed the rear guard.
On the 5th. of December this division had come to Smorgoni where Napoleon took leave from his marshals and from his army, after he had entrusted Murat with the command.
The division Loison, during the eventful night from December 5th. to 6th., had rendered great services. Without the presence of Loison’s soldiers Napoleon would have fallen into the hands of his enemies, and the wheel of the history of the world would have taken a different turn.
Dr. Geissler describes Napoleon, whom he saw at a few paces’ distance on the day of his departure, and he writes “the personality of this extraordinary man, his physiognomy with the stamp of supreme originality, the remembrance of his powerful deeds by which he moved the world during his time, carried us away in involuntary admiration. Was not the voice which we heard the same which resounded all over Europe, which declared wars, decided battles, regulated the fate of empires, elevated or extinguished the glory of so many.”
It may appear strange that in a medical history I record these details, but I give them because they show how the personality of Napoleon had retained its magic influence even in that critical moment.
The soldiers wanted to salute him with their _Vive l’Empereur_! but, in consideration of the assumed incognito of the Imperator without an army, it was interdicted.
Up to this day Napoleon has been blamed for his step, to leave the army. At the Beresina he had refused with pride the offer of some Poles to take him over the river and to bring him safely to Wilna. Now there was nothing more to save of the army, and other duties called him peremptorily away. If we study well the situation, the complications which had arisen from the catastrophe and which were to arise in the following year, we must in justice to him admit that he was obliged to go in order to create another army.
It is not a complete history which I am writing; otherwise it would be my duty to speak of the deep impression, the dramatic effect, which Napoleon’s departure had made on his soldiers. In presenting somewhat extensively some details of those days I simply wished to show who they were and how many brave men there were who had been spared for the atrocities of Wilna.
If I were to do justice to the voluminous material before me of the bravery of the soldiers on their march from the Beresina to Wilna I would have to write a whole book on this part of the history alone.
* * * * *
Once more the hope of the unfortunates should be disappointed in a most cruel way. They knew of fresh troops and of rich magazines in Wilna. But only 2 thousand men were left of the Loison division, not enough to defend the place against the enemy whose coming was to be expected.
The provisions, however, were stored in the magazines, and there were, according to French accounts, forty day rations of bread, flour and crackers for 100 thousand men, cattle for 36 days, 9 million rations of wine and brandy; in addition, vegetables and food for horses, as well as clothing in abundance.
Unfortunately, the governor of Wilna, the Duke of Bassano, was only a diplomat, entirely incompetent to handle the situation, which required military talent.
Unfortunate had also been Napoleon’s choice of Murat. On August 31st, 1817, he said in conversation with _Gourgaud, “I have made a great mistake in entrusting Murat with the highest command of the army, because he was the most incompetent man to act successfully under such circumstances.”
No preparations were made for the entering troops, no quarters had been assigned for them when they came.
And they came on the 9th; most horrible details have been recorded of this day when the disbanded mass crowded the gate.
Wilna was not only not in ruins, but it was the only large city which had not been abandoned by its inhabitants. But these inhabitants shut their doors before the entering soldiers. Only some officers and some Germans, the latter among the families of German mechanics, found an abode in the houses. Some Poles were hospitable, also some Lithuanians, and even the Jews.
All writers complain of the avidity and cruelty of the latter; they mixed among the soldiers to obtain whatever they had saved from the pillage of Moscow. These Jews had everything the soldier was in need of, bread and brandy, delicacies and even horses and sleighs; in their restaurants all who had money or valuables could be accommodated. And these places were crowded with soldiers who feasted at the well supplied tables, and even hilarity developed among these men saved from the ice fields of Russia. During the night every space was occupied as a resting place.
While those who could afford it enjoyed all the good things of which they had been deprived so long, the poor soldiers in the streets were in great misery. The doors being shut, they entered the houses by force and illtreated the inhabitants who on the next day took a bitter revenge.
Even the rich magazines had remained closed, tedious formalities had to be observed, the carrying out of which was an impossibility since the whole army was disbanded. No regiment had kept together, no detachment could be selected to present vouchers for receiving rations.
Lieutenant Jacobs gives an illustration of the condition: “Orders had been given to receive rations for four days. Colonel von Egloffstein in the evening of the 9th sent Lieutenant Jacobs with 100 men to the bread magazine to secure as much as possible, and as this magazine was at some distance, and as Cossacks had already entered the city, he ordered 25 armed men to accompany the hundred, who, naturally enough, were not armed. The commissary of the magazine refused to hand out bread without a written order of the commissaire-ordonateur; the lieutenant therefore notified him that he would take by force what he needed for his regiment. And with his 25 carabiniers he had to fight for the bread.”
Finally the pressing need led to violence. During the night of the 10th. the desperate soldiers, aided by inhabitants, broke into the magazines, at first into those containing clothing, then they opened the provision stores, throwing flour bags and loaves of bread into the street where the masses fought for these missiles. And when the liquor depots were broken into, the crowd forced its way in with howls. They broke the barrels, and wild orgies took place until the building took fire and many of the revelers became the victims of the flames.
While this pillaging went on the market place of Wilna was the scene of events not less frightful. A detachment of Loison’s division, obedient to their duty, had congregated there, stacked arms and, in order to warm themselves to the best of their ability–the temperature was 30 deg. below zero R. (37 deg. below zero F.)–and to thaw the frozen bread, had lighted a fire. I cannot describe the fight among these soldiers for single pieces of bread; they were too horrid.
This night ended, and in the morning the cannon was heard again.
An early attack had been expected, and perspicacious officers had taken advantage of the few hours of rest to urge their men to prepare for the last march to the near frontier. Count Hochberg implored his officers to follow this advice, but the fatigues and sickness they had undergone, their frozen limbs and the threat of greater misery, made most of them refuse to heed his entreaties. Thus Hochberg lost 74 of his best and most useful officers who remained in Wilna and died there. Similar attempts were made in other quarters. Many of those addressed laughed sneeringly. This sneering I shall never forget, says Lieutenant von Hailbronner, who escaped while the enemy was entering. Death on the road to Kowno was easier, after all, than dying slowly in the hospitals of Wilna.
On the 10th., in the morning, the Russians entered, and the Cossacks ran their lances through every one in their way.
There were fights in the streets, the troops of the division Loison fought the Russians.
[Illustration]
Old Sergeant Picart, of the old guard, on hearing the drum, struck his comrade Bourgogne, the writer of some memoirs of the campaign, on the shoulder, saying: “Forward, comrade, we are of the old guard, we must be the first under arms.” And Bourgogne went along, although sick and wounded.
German and French bravery vied with each other on the 10th. of December. Ney and Loison along with Wrede. The latter, on the day previous, had come to the house of the marshal to offer him a small escort of cavalry if he would leave Wilna. Ney pointing to the mass of soldiers who had to be protected, answered: “All the Cossacks in the world shall not bring me out of this city to-night.”
Ney and Wrede left with their troops.
Woe to those who had remained, their number was about 10 thousand, besides 5 thousand sick in the hospitals.
According to Roeder, 500 were murdered in the streets on this day, partly by Cossacks, partly by Jews, the latter revenging themselves for ill treatment.
All reports, and they are numerous, of Germans, French and also Russians, speak of the cruelty of the Jews of Wilna. We must not forget, however, the provocations under which they had to suffer, nor how they, in supplying soldiers with eatables and clothing, saved many who otherwise would have perished.
Von Lossberg says that Christian people of Wilna have also taken part in the massacre, and only the Poles did not participate.
The Cossacks began their bloody work early in the morning.
Awful cries of the tortured were heard in the Wuerttembergian hospital, telling the sick who were lying there what they themselves had to expect from the entering enemies.
Those who had remained in Smolensk and Moscow after the armed soldiers had departed were at once massacred. In Wilna likewise many were murdered, but the greater number–many thousands–(other circumstances did not permit to do away with all these prisoners in the same way) perished after days or weeks of sickness and privations of all kind.
Wilna’s convents could tell of it if their walls could speak.
Dr. Geissler narrates that the prisoners in the Basilius monastery into which soldiers of all nationalities had been driven, during 13 days received only a little hardtack, but neither wood nor a drop of water; they had to quench their thirst with the snow which covered the corpses in the yard.
The Englishman Wilson, of whom I have spoken already, who had come to Wilna with Kutusow’s army, says: “The Basilius monastery, transformed into a prison, offered a terrible sight–7,500 corpses were piled up in the corridors, and corpses were also in other parts of the building, the broken windows and the holes in the walls were plugged with feet, legs, hands, heads, trunks, just as they would fit in the openings to keep out the cold air. The putrefying flesh spread a terrible stench.”
(Carpon, a French Surgeon-Major who was with the army in Wilna, has described the events in a paper “_Les Morts de Wilna_”. I cannot quote from his writings because he gives impossible statistics and contradicts himself in his narrations.)
Yelin speaks of a hospital in which all the inmates had been murdered by the Cossacks. He himself was in a Wuerttembergian hospital and describes his experience: “Terrible was the moment when the door was burst open. The monsters came in and distributed themselves all over the house. We gave them all we had and implored them on our knees to have pity, but all in vain. ‘Schelma Franzuski,’ they answered, at the same time they beat us with their kantchous, kicked us unmercifully with their feet, and as new Cossacks came in all the time, we were finally deprived of all our clothing and beaten like dogs. Even the bandages of the poor wounded were torn off in search of hidden money or valuables. Lieutenant Kuhn (a piece of his cranium had been torn away at Borodino) was searched; he fell down like dead and it took a long time and much pain to bring him to life again.”
Lieutenant von Soden was beaten with hellish cruelty on his sore feet and gangraenous toes so that they bled. When nothing more could be found on the sick and wounded they were left lying on the stone floor.
There was no idea of medicine.
The cold in the rooms was so great that hands and feet of many were frozen.
Sometimes prisoners shaking with frost would sneak out at night to find a little wood. Some Westphalians who had tried this were beaten to death.
Some of the prisoners were literally eaten up by lice.
Those who did not die of their wounds, of filth, and of misery, were carried away by petechial typhus which had developed into a violent epidemic in Wilna, and several thousand of the citizens, among them many Jews, succumbed to the ravages of this disease.
One witness writes: “Little ceremony was observed in disposing of the dead; every morning I heard how those who had died during the night were thrown down the stairs or over the balcony into the yard, and by counting these sinister sounds of falling bodies we knew how many had died during the