Through Russian Snows: A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow by G. A. Henty (reading women txt) 📕

hope of falling upon the Russians before they had time to concentrate, they found the town already evacuated, and the whole of the immense magazines collected there destroyed.

Almost simultaneously with the passage of the Niemen by the three corps under the French marshals, those of Prince Eugene and the other generals also crossed, but further south, and also advanced at full speed in hopes of interposing between the three Russian armies, and of preventing their concentration. For the next week the French pressed hard upon the rear of the retreating Russians, but failed to bring on a battle, while they themselves suffered from an incessant downpour of rain which made the roads well-nigh impassable. The commissariat train broke down, and a hundred pieces of cannon and 5000 ammunition waggons had to be abandoned. The rain, and a bitterly cold wind that accompanied it, brought on an epidemic among the horses, which were forced to depend solely upon the green rye growing in the fields. Several thousands died; the troops themselves suffered so much from thirst and hunger that no less than 30,000 stragglers fell out from the ranks and spread themselves over the country, burning, ravaging, plundering, and committing terrible depredations. Such dismay was caused by their treatment that the villages were all abandoned, and the whole population retired before the advance of the French, driving their flocks and herds before them, and thus adding greatly to the difficulties of the invaders.

MAP SHOWING THE ROUTE OF NAPOLEON'S MARCH TO MOSCOW.

The greater portion of these straggling marauders belonged not to the French corps, but to the allies, who possessed none of the discipline of the French soldiery, and whose conduct throughout the campaign was largely responsible for the intense animosity excited by the invaders, and for the suffering that afterwards befell them.

As the pursuit continued even Napoleon's best soldiers were surprised at their failure to overtake the Russians. However long their marches, however well planned the operations, the Russians always out-marched and out-manœuvred them. It seemed to them almost that they were pursuing a phantom army, a will-o'-the-wisp, that eluded all their efforts to grasp it, and a fierce fight between the rear-guard of Barclay de Tolly's army and the advance-guard of Murat's cavalry, in which the latter suffered severely, was the only fight of importance, until the invaders, after marching more than half-way to Moscow, arrived at Witebsk.

Nevertheless they had suffered severely. The savage ferocity with which, in spite of repeated proclamations and orders, the invading army treated the people, had exasperated the peasantry almost to madness, and taking up arms, they cut down every straggler, annihilated small parties, attacked baggage trains, and repeated in Russia the terrible retaliation dealt by the Spanish guerillas upon their invaders.

On the right of the French advance there had been heavier fighting. There General Schwarzenberg with his 30,000 Austrians had advanced against the third Russian army, under Tormanssow. A brigade of the division under Regnier, which was by Napoleon's order marching to join Schwarzenberg, entered Kobrin, where it was surrounded by Tormanssow, and after a brave resistance of nine hours, in which it lost 2000 killed and wounded, the remainder, 2300 in number, were forced to surrender. Tormanssow then took up a strong position with his 18,000 men, and awaited the attack of the united forces of Schwarzenberg and Regnier, 38,000 strong.

The battle lasted all day, the loss on either side being between four and five thousand. Tormanssow held his position, but retired under cover of night. On the 3rd of August the armies of Barclay and Bagration at last succeeded in effecting a junction at Smolensk, and towards that town the French corps moved from various quarters, until 250,000 men were assembled near it, and on the 15th of August, Murat and Ney arrived within nine miles of the place.

Smolensk, a town of considerable size, on the Dnieper, distant 280 miles from Moscow, was surrounded by a brick wall thirty feet high and eighteen feet thick at the base, with loopholed battlements. This wall formed a semicircle of about three miles and a half, the ends resting on the river. It was strengthened by thirty towers, and at its forts was a deep dry ditch. The town was largely built of wood. There were no heavy guns upon the walls, and the city, which was completely commanded by surrounding hills, was in no way defensible, but Barclay de Tolly felt himself obliged to fight.

The greatest indignation prevailed in Russia at the retreat of the armies without attempting one determined stand, the abandonment of so large a tract of country to the French, and the suffering and ruin thereby wrought among the population of one of the richest and most thickly-peopled districts of Russia. Barclay's own plan had been to draw the enemy farther and farther into the country, knowing that with every mile of advance their difficulties would increase and their armies become weakened by fatigue, sickness, and the assaults of the peasantry. But the continued retreats were telling upon the spirit of his own troops also. To them the war was a holy one. They had marched to the frontier burning to meet the invader, and that, from the moment of his crossing the Niemen, they should have to retreat, hunted and harassed like beaten men, goaded them to fury. The officers were no less indignant than the men, and Barclay found that it was absolutely necessary to make a stand.

The French were as eager as the Russians to fight, and when it became known that the enemy seemed determined to make a stand at Smolensk they were filled with exultation. Ney's corps was the first to appear before the town, and took up its position on rising ground a short distance from the suburbs lying outside the wall and next to the river. Davoust's corps was to his right, Poniatowski's division came next, while Murat with his cavalry division completed the semicircle.

"The Russians must be mad," was the comment of the veterans of Julian's regiment. "The place is of no strength; the artillery will breach the walls in no time. They have but one bridge by which to retreat across the river, and we shall soon knock that to pieces with our guns on the right, and shall catch all who are in the town in a trap."

The obstinate resistance, however, that had been given by the Russians to the attacks on their rear-guard had impressed the invaders with a respect for their foes, that was in strong contrast to the feeling entertained when they crossed the frontier, save only among the soldiers who had met the Russians before, and who knew with what dogged valour they always fought, especially when on the defensive.

"It is going to be tough work, Jules, I can tell you," one of them said to Julian, whose English birth was now almost forgotten, and who, by the good temper he always manifested, however long the marches and however great the fatigues, had become a general favourite. "I guess we are only going to fight because the Russians are tired of retreating, just as we are tired of pursuing them. They can gain nothing by fighting here. We outnumber them tremendously. The great bulk of their army lies on the heights on the other side of the river, and there is nothing to prevent their retreating to some strong position, where they might give battle with advantage. On the other hand, there is no reason why we should fight here. We have come down thirty or forty miles out of the direct road to Moscow, and if, instead of doing so, we had crossed the river, and had gone straight on, the Russians must have evacuated the town and pushed on with all speed in order to get between us and Moscow. But this marching about without getting a battle discourages men more even than defeat, and I hope that it will do something to restore discipline among the Germans and Austrians, ay, and among our own troops too. I have been through a number of campaigns, and I have never seen such disorder, such plunder, such want of discipline as has been shown since we entered Russia. I tell you, Jules, even a defeat would do us good. Look at the Russians; they never leave a straggler behind them, never a dismounted gun, while the roads behind us are choked up with our abandoned guns and waggons, and the whole country is covered with our marauders. I should be glad if one of the brigades was ordered to break up into companies and to march back, spreading out across the whole country we have traversed, and shooting every man they met between this and the frontier, whether he was French, German, Austrian, or Pole."

"It has been terrible," Julian agreed, "but at least we have the satisfaction of knowing that Ney's corps d'armée has furnished a smaller share of stragglers than most of the others."

"That is true enough, but bad is the best, lad. Some of our battalions are nearly all young soldiers, and I can't say much for their conduct, while the seven battalions of Spaniards, Wurtemburgers, and men from the Duchy of Baden have behaved shamefully, and I don't think that the four squadrons of Polish cavalry have been any better. We have all been bad; there is no denying it; and never should we have conquered Germany, crushed Prussia, and forced Austria to submit, had our armies behaved in the way they have done of late. Napoleon would soon have put a stop to it then. He would have had one or two of the worst regiments drawn up, and would have decimated them as a lesson to the rest. Now his orders seem to go for nothing. He has far too much on his mind to attend to such things, and the generals have been thinking so much of pressing on after the enemy that they have done nothing to see the orders carried into effect. It was the same sort of thing that drove the Spaniards into taking to the mountains, and causing us infinite trouble and great loss of life. Fortunately, here we are so strong that we need fear no reverse, but if a disaster occurred I tell you, Jules, we should have good cause to curse the marauders who have converted these lazy peasants into desperate foes."

"I should think we ought not to lose many men in taking that town, sergeant. There seem to be no guns on the walls. We have the suburbs to cover our advance, and attacking them on all sides, as we shall do, we ought to force our way in without much trouble."

"It would seem so, lad; yes, it would seem so. But you know in Spain it once cost us five days' fighting after we got inside a town. I allow it was not like this. The streets were narrow, the houses were of stone, and each house a fortress, while, as you can see from here, the streets are wide and at right angles to each other, and the houses of brick, and, I fancy, many of them of wood. Still, knowing what the Russians are, I would wager we shall not capture Smolensk with a loss of less than ten thousand men, that is if they really defend it until the last."

The following day, the 16th of August, a cannonade was kept up against the walls by the French artillery, the Russians replying but seldom. The next morning it was discovered that Prince Bagration had marched with his army from the hills on the other side of the river to take post on the main Moscow road so as to prevent the position being turned by the advance of a portion of the French army by that route. During the night Barclay had thrown two pontoon bridges across the river in addition to the permanent bridge. At daybreak a dropping fire broke out, for both Davoust and Ney had sent bodies of troops into the suburbs, which they had entered without opposition, and these now opened an irritating fire on the Russians upon the wall. At eight o'clock the firing suddenly swelled into a roar. Doctorow, the Russian general in command of the troops in the town, made a sortie, and cleared the suburbs at the point of the bayonet. Napoleon, believing that the Russian army was coming out to attack him, drew up Ney and Davoust's troops in order of battle, with 70,000 infantry in the first line, supported by Murat's 30,000 cavalry.

Partial attacks were continued against the suburbs, but the Russians obstinately maintained themselves there. Finding that they showed no signs of advancing to attack him, Napoleon at two o'clock gave orders for a general assault, and the whole of the French troops advanced against the suburbs. The attack of Ney's corps was directed against the Krasnoi suburb,