Russia Invaded: From Genghis Khan to Hitler

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© American Edition Copyright 1966 by The Lion Press, Inc.

New York, N. Y.

Publ ished simultaneously in Canada by George J. McLeod, Ltd. 73 Bathurst Street, Toronto 2B, Ontario

© Copyright 1965 by Vallecchi Editore, Florence Li brary of Congress Cata log Card No. AC 66-10867

This book was printed and bound in the Ullited States of America by American Book-Stratford Press, In c.

Contents

East and West Cast a Covetous Eye on the Cities of the Gilded Domes Emperor Napoleon's Grandiose Dream The Horror of Smolensk The Day of Borodino : Glory and Death for All Moscow: The Holy City in the Hands of the Anti-Christ Russia Annihilates the Grand Army Hitler Unleashes Operation Barbarossa The Russians Halt the Rapid Advance by Hitler at Leningrad and Moscow "Beyond the Volga There Is No More Territory" The Great Flight in World History

5 21 39 51

67 81 101 119 139 159

East and West Cast a Covetous Eye on the Cities of the Gilded Domes

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The Golden Horde of Genghis Khan Begins the Series of Invasions

1. Genghis Khan, SOli 01 a Mongol blacksmith. H e succeeded ;11 uniting the Tartar tribes under one command Wid making them ill/o a formidable power. 2. The epic duel/ollKhl in f380 between Prince Dmitri DOliska; and th e Mongol chie/tajn ill the presence of their respective troops.

Genghis Khan, Charles XII, Napoleon , Hitler: from one century to another these names represent only a few of the attempts made by very powerful enemy nations to invade Russia and to subjugate its people permanently. Russia, situated between Europe and Asia, is an immense expanse of open territory which has always attracted the cupidity of would-be conquerors from both continents. Yet, no matter how disunited they were, or how unprepared at the moment of attack, the Russians - considered "easy" prey in the end always successfully hurled back the invaders and liberated their land. Tn the process they also wrote some of the most splendid pages in the history of mankind . . It is often said that Russia's invincibility is due to the vastness of the territory which "swallows" invaders, and to the terrible winters which destroy them. According to this view, the blizzards raging in the steppes equally halted the Mongol horsemen, Napoleon's Grand Army, and Hitler's panzer divisions. The truth, however, is that the invaders were always beaten in combat by the Russians before they were covered in the white shrouds of the snow. For the real strength of the Russians lies in their deep attachment to the land, in their love for national independence. Down the centuries this has raised a wall between the Russians and the invaders of their country more impregnable than the Chinese Wall, and a barrier more insurmountable than a thousand miles of frozen steppes. Contrary to general belief, the Russian people always preferred national regimes, no matter how despotic they were, to the dubious freedom blazoned on the banners of the foreigner. The serfs, for example, did not join Napoleon's armies against Czarist absolut-

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ism; and in our time the resistance of Soviet peasants and workers to Hitler's armies was dogged, heroic, to the bitter end. The similarities that mark the different invasions of Russian territory a re numerous and consequently invite comparisons and parallels; the differences, however, are equally numerous and significant. What particularly stands out is the fact that on every occasion the behavior of the Russian people has always been the same : a desperate resistance, born of a genuine and profound love of country. Tn the end this resistance always triumphed over the invaders.

The first " invasion" of Russian territory was a peaceful one, by the Varangians - Baltic merchants who ventured to operate along the rivers that flowed endlessly through the Russian plain. The Varangians used these winter routes in order to transport their merchandise down to the Black Sea, to the Mediterranean, to the biggest market of the Middle East, Byzantium. They began their activities in the ninth century. Thi s led to the construction of a series of fortifications which were manned by small detachments of soldiers. Their mission was to protect the passage of merchant ships through a territory whose inhabitants were viewed as potentially unreliable. Therefore the arrival of the Varangians in Russia ca nnot be called a n invasion or even a military occupation. It was merely a kind of police service established over the stretches of the water routes at commercially strategic points, for example at the intersection of two rivers. Thus was born the principality of Kiev, the richest and the most powerful of the V arangian settlements. Tn Kiev the chieftains of the local tribe,

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3. The M ongolian warriors learned from th e Chinese how to shoot arrows with deadly accuracy, how to besiege a city, alld how to exact taxes.

known as the Russ, immediately realized the importance which the locality had for the Varangians, situated as it was at the crossroads of routes pointing to a n immensely vast world beyond: the caravan trails originating in Asia, in the lands around the Caspian Sea, in the area around the Black Sea, in Byzantium and on the shores of the Sea of Azov. It was not long before the Russ tribe got the upper hand over the Swedish merchants, attacking them or cooperating with them according to the circumstances . By the tenth century this tribe was already a power to be reckoned with. The territory it controlled was actually called Russ, from which the name of the whole country was derived later. The first real invaders of Russia were the TatarsTartars - who came from the Far East. Nobody in Europe at that time knew anything about these barbarians, but soon their name everywhere was to become a synonym for terror and devastation. When the Tartars arrived in Russia , pouring in from the Caucasus and spreading as far as the Dalmatian coast, they were already on the decline as a people. They made only a fleeting appearance in Europe, but in Russia their rule lasted for a very long time and had notable consequences. The Russians had their first brush with these Mongols in 1224, when the "Golden Horde" - as the Mongol army was called - had wrested Tibet and much of central Asia from China. The Russians had been entreated to intervene by the Polovtsy, the tribes who lived between the Caspian and the lower Volga. The Polvotsy, in fact, sent one of their chieftains, Kotyan, to Kiev to ask for help . The Russian princes knew nothing whatsoever about these Tartars. But Kotyan eagerly explained that they were a savage and cruel people who had already conquered Samarkand,

4. The interior of a Mongol yurt, a tell I made of fell supported by a woodell framework.

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Herat, and Bokhara, and had wholly devastated Georgia and Daghestan with fire and sword. Hence there was no doubt that once they wiped out the Polovtsy, the Mongols would fall upon the Russians like famished hawks. At Kiev the princes assembled an army of 80,000 men and marched southward in the direction of the Sea of Azov. After several skirmishes the Russians, at the decisive battle fought on the banks of the Kalka River, realized that tbey were dealing not with savage hordes, but with highly skilled warriors. Only a few of the 80,000 Russians managed to escape, and several of their leaders, among them the Grand Prince of Kiev, were forced to surrender after the Russian negotiators had obtained from the Mongols a promise to release them upon payment of a ransom. It was a cruel deception. Instead, the Tartars forced their prisoners to stretch out on the ground, then they built a wooden platform on top of them and riotously feasted upon it in celebration of their victory. The victors' shouts of joy drowned out the moans and cries, growing progressively weaker, of the poor wretches who had believed their promises. Then the Tartars broke camp and went back toward Asia, entranced by the boundless horizons. Nobody in Kiev, or in the rest of Russia , could ever find out where they went, and after a few years nobody ever gave them a thought. Who were these irresistible warriors who seemed to have emerged directly out of the jaws of hell ? They had come down from Mongolia, where up to a few years before they had led the wretched existence of nomads. Their destiny had been marked out for them from the moment that a certain bogatyr - the chief of a drLlzhina (the combat unit into which the tribes

were subdivided) - appeared on the scene. This bogatyr was called Temuchin, which means "good metal ," the name which had been given him by his father, a blacksmith. But this name was forgotten when, after a long string of victories, he assumed the title Genghis Khan, which meant "Great Chief." Temuchin was orphaned at the age of thirteen , after his father was killed by a rival belonging to another dru zhina. Temuchin grew up with an unquenchable thirst for vengeance. While presumably concerned only with forging the iron for making arrows and lances as his father had done before him, he certainly must have sensed that he would not always be a smith. As soon as he reached adulthood he achieved a moral ascendancy over the members of his druzhina. Temuchin then gathered together a group of venturesome young men and set out to avenge his father. He launched an attack against the encampment of the rival tribe, massacred all the men and boys, and let his followers divide the women of thc conquered foe among themselves. Now he was not only the commander of his drLl zhina, but also of the defeated unit. His road was clearly marked out for him now. Soon Temuchin was at the head of his people, who for the first time were united under a single command. He succeeded in carving out an enormous empire which stretched from Pek i ng to Persia "as far as horses' hoofs could reach ," in the words of the chronicler of the deeds of Genghis Khan. It is a suggestive expression, but it hardly gives an adequate idea of the successes of this military leader who now ruled a territory of 3720 square miles. It required twelve months to traverse this vast stretch of territory through almost impenetrable forests and endless steppes.

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We owe whatever we know about the Tartars to an Italian friar, Giovanni dal Pian del Carpine. He was a Franciscan whom the Pope sent as ambassador to the cou rt of the successor of Genghis Khan , after the latter's death . In his "Historia Mongolorum ," this friar relates that the Tartars, although savages, had been able to exploit the state organization of the Chinese whom they subjected to their rule. From them they learned many things, including how to shoot arrows with deadly accuracy, how to besiege a city, and how to set up a workable system for exacting taxes. They had highly organized armies and precise rules of strategy from which they rarely deviated. They fought on horseback for maximum mobility and assailed their foes by an enveloping tactic aimed at cutting them up into smaller units so as to bottle them up each time more closely within the sector which they had cut off from the principal arena of action. After crushing the enemy they would resume their march, leaving behind a mountain of corpses ; few managed to escape alive from a defeat at the hands of the Mongols. When the Golden Horde set out on a military expedition it dragged everything and everybody along with it, even families. Each druzhina , in fact , moved from one end to the other of the boundless dominion, followed by endless caravans, characterized by the slow wave-like movement of the great yurts mounted on wagons which were dragged by two rows of oxen. The yurt was a tent made of white or black felt wrapped around a wooden framework in the form of a truncated cone. It had an opening at the top. The Mongols were cheats and deceivers, idolators, fiercely proud and quick to anger. They never washed their clothes and ate lice, rats, dogs, foxes "and also humans in case of necessity."

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Giovanni dal Pian del Carpine has described one of their favorite recipes: they kept a piece of meat all day long between the saddle and the back of the horse, "cooking it" with the heat of the animal's body. At night, after a long day's journey, dinner was ready in the form of a sizzling steak! Tn 1215, when Peking fell, Genghis Khan's men razed the city after sacking it and conducting a frightful massacre of its inhabitants. After a month of systematic terror of all kinds, even the ruins were destroyed in a gigantic fire. The fate suffered by Peking was similar to that of all the other cities conquered by the Mongols of the Golden Horde. It provides the most substantial proof of the backwardness of these nomads, who simply had no comprehension of the social, administrative, and political function of a great city, and never hesitated to destroy the splendid riches of the peoples they had conquered. The subjugation of China was not an easy task for the Mongols. Even though the Chinese empire was at that time governed by an easy-going ruling class, more disposed to discuss abstruse philosophical problems than to fight , the resistance was bitter and the Great Wall held back the Golden Horde for a long time. However, the China against which Temuchin fought was divided into three kingdoms. For this reason its capacity to resist was very much weakened. Genghis Khan did not live to See the end of the great enterprise ; he died in 1227, a few days before the surrender of Ning-hia, the capital of the kingdom of Tangut, in the northwestern territory of the Chinese empire. His generals, however, brought the conquest to its conclusion in a manner that was in keeping with Tartar tradition. Indeed , in accordance with Genghis Khan's last will, the defenders of Ning-hia were all put to the sword. "The greatest happiness in

5 . Ti,e Great Wall did nOl save the Chinese (rom the Tartars: Peking fell in 1215 . Gel/ghis Kha" o rdered the maS.w cre of all the inhabitants before razing the city to the grolllld.

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6. Map showing th e greater principalities of Russia befo re the Grand Prince of Mosco w united the immense territory. Tartar rule came to an end only after the unification was complete.

life," Temuchin once said , "consists in beating your enemies, in forcing them to flee, in plundering their belongings, in seeing the despair of their kinsmen , in riding their horses, in stealing their wives and their daughters. " He was succeeded by his third-born son , Ogdai , who led the Golden Horde to Europe. When the Mongols attacked Russia , in 1236, Genghis Khan had been dead for nine years. The army that marched towards the West was composed of 500,000 men under the command of Batu, a nephew of the great Khan. He was assisted by the two gencrals who had led Genghis Khan's vanguards against the Polovtsy in 1224 and had defeated the princes of Kiev, Gebe and Subutai. The Volga region absorbed the first shock: the Mongols had crossed the river and directly threatened the principality of Ryazan. The tribute exacted was enormou s. Batu demanded "a tenth of everything"that is to say. a tenth part of the nobles, a tenth part of the women, a tenth part of the territory, a tenth part of the harvests, a tenth part of the money. Ryazan's defenders replied with a proud "no," even though theirs was the only principality putting up any resistance to the advance of the Golden Horde. "After our death," the noble defenders replied to the Mongols, "you will be able to have everything, not just the tenth part of everything." It was a proud reply, but militarily worthless. The Mongols started their push on December 12, 1237 ; they conquered Ryazan, put it to the torch and made a desolation of the whole principality. The city held out for six days, which had infuriated the Mongols. Batu ordered that half of the surviving citizens be killed immediately, so the soldiers of the Golden Horde lopped off several hundred heads with their scimitars. The other half of the terrified citizens were herded into a square

and burned alive. "God VISits these punishments upon us through the incursions of pagans," explains the so-called Laurentius Chronicle, "since these are His scourge until we return to reason and we abandon our wicked ways. God therefore lets this misfortune break over us on our feast days, as the prophet has said: 'I will change your feast days into lamentations, your songs into sobs.' And they conquered the city already before noon .... " The other cities underwent the same fate: a few days later, Moscow, which was not yet considered a city of more than secondary importance, also fell to the Golden Horde. Two months later, galloping wildly over fields covered with ice, the Mongols reached Vladimir, which they surrounded and assaulted with their terrifying machines for besieging cities, reducing it to a pile of smoking ruins. Now the Golden Horde was only about 66 miles from magnificent Novgorod, Russia's most important commercial .center. At this point, however, Batu ordered his horsemen to turn back across the frozen steppes. The Mongol commander probably feared that the thaw would impede the movements of the cavalry and prevent the druzhinas mounted on the oxen-drawn wagons from fOllowing the army. Batu remained encamped between the Volga and the Don for two years. He bled white the occupied territory, as well as the adjoining territories which he threatened to invade, with his demands for tribute. Tn 1239 he resumed operations against the "Court of the Gilded Domes," Kiev, the "mother of Russian cities," the city which was to fa scinate the Tartars with the riches proclaimed by the golden cupolas of hcr churches. Leaving Kiev behind him, Batu continued the advance towards Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary.

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7. Olle of the most bellulijul and famous Russian icons. Russian artisls lor a lo ng time reflected the Byzantine influence and offen allai"ed th e lo/tiest artistic expression. Kiev and Novgorod are the cradles 61 Russiwl art. 8. A Mon gol yurt mounted 0 11 an enormous wagon drawn by two row~' 0/ oxen. These mobile tenls allowed the Golden Horde to drag the whole tribe along with it during its military expeditions.

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Only two Russian CItIes remained standing: Great Novgorod and Pskov, while the territories occupied by the Tartars rem ained cut off from the rest of the world for a long time. All this notwi thsta ndin g, the Russians never gave up their resistance to the invader, although his rule now extended from the Urals to the Carpathians, from the Caucasus up to 250 miles north of Moscow. This, incidentally, explains the survival of many Mongol words in the Russian language of today, such as ko/pak (a cone-like cap made of animal skin) and many epithets of an insulting character. They called the city "Gospodin Velikii Novgorod ," "Sovereign Great Novgorod." It was the administrative center of the territories of SI. Sophia, the only strip of Russian earth - north of Polotsk, Smolensk, T ver, Moscow and Rostov - which the T artars had not conquered. Nevertheless, not even Novgorod , so proud of her independence, could escape the vexations of the great M ongol power which threatened her from close by. However, it is probable that the T artars preferred to leave Novgorod alone and to let the city conduct her brisk trade with the aim of extor·ting enormous ransoms from her later. The political situation of the city, to which the refugees from the mass exodus in Kiev had fl ed, remained very precarious, continuously threatened not only by the Mongols to the sou th , but by the Swedes from the north, and the Prussians from the west. Finally Novgorod preferred - as long as it was possible - to remain at peace with the Tartars at the price of a harsh vassalage so that she could defend herself on a single front , namely the northwestern. This was why "Gospodin Velikii Novgorod" was in a position to face the Swedes in 1240, the year in which the Mon-

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gols reduced Kiev to a heap of ruins. The Swedes swooped down with the intention of fi ghting a kind of holy war - they were helped by the Crusaders, who wore the heavy suits of armor of the T eut onic Knights - but the army of Novgorod, under the command of Prince Alexander, destroyed them in a battle fought along the banks of the Neva. The clash had the significance of a victory of Greek Orthodox against Roman Catholics, and Alexander was given the name Nevsky ( Alexander of the Neva ), with which he was to pass into history and be inscribed in the golden book of Russia's national heroes. It was not long before the offensive against Novgorod was resumed , this time by the Prussians or, more specifically, by the Knights of the T eutonic Order. Even in this case the aggression was masked as a holy war, indeed as a crusade to bring the faith to the remote, desolate northern territories. The Teutonic Order of the Knights of the Sword had been founded in 1143, just before the Second Crusade. That period also saw the birth of two other monastic-knightly orders established for the defense of the feudal regimes that the Europeans had set up in the Middle East in the territories wrested from the infidels - namely , the Knights Templars, created in I 118 , and the Knights of Jerusalem. At the dawn of the thirteenth century, Pope Innocent III again . appealed to the Knights to redeem the Holy Sepulcher. The European sovereigns did not take part in this Crusade ( preceding ones had been joined by Louis IX, king of France, the emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and the king of England, Richard the Lion-Hearted) but only the major exponents of the feudal world, as the knights of the three orders could be properly considered. It was in Venice that the undertaking, which had

been brought into being by the Pope's exhortations, lost every religious purpose. Bereft of funds for the journey, the Crusaders, urged on by the Venetia ns, were forced to stri ke the enemy at his most vital point, Constantinople. The Pope was grievously di sappointed, but he did not withdraw his spiritual support from the Crusaders because of this. The launching of the Fourth Crusade .was only one of the apostolic tasks that Innocent III had set him self. The broad papal program also included the "reconquest" of Spain , then occupied by the Arabs (the Moorish dominion in the Iberian penninsula was greatly reduced after the great victory of Las Novas of Toloso, and was limited to the Kingdom of Granada), and the C rusade of the North . Thi s was the Crusade which was co nducted by the Kings of the Teutonic Order (d uring the very period when the war against Constantinople was being waged in the south ) in the Baltic countries. It was a holy war, at least in the beginning, the aim of which was to convert those frozen lands to Christianity. The Knights Teutonic were well eq uipped and well organized: they had won a good reputation as fighters on the great plains northeast of the Holy Roman Empire at the beginnin g of the thirtee nth century. The King of Hungary had assigned them the task of conquering for him Transylvania, the country which lay beyond the Ca rpathians, and they had carried out their task brilliantly, completely wiping out the pagan tribe of the C umans. The struggle against the populations of Prussia and the Baltic had taken longer, but not without successes. The Knights of the Sword used the same method as the Crusaders. Befo re going into battle in their ponderous brown suits of armor they would hea r Mass. Then, aft er making the sigh of the Cross, they would

lift themselves into their saddles, lower thei r vIsors over their eyes, and rush at the enemy. When the battle was over, the conquered were baptized o n a mass basis, after whi ch the constr uction of churches began in the conquered country. The Knights naturally exacted heavy tribute from the defeated foe, and these monies served to fina nce the undertakings themselves as well as the other ac ti vities for the propagation of the faith . The conquest of the te rrito ries, further, was accompanied by a mass emigration by German colonists to the new territories that had been opened to the new faith and to colonization. Gradually the Catholic peasants ga ined asce ndancy in wealth and even in numbers in the new territories and thus constituted a guarantee of the continuity of the conquests. In this way, Finland, Li vonia , Hungary, and Rum ani a were won for the fa ith. Tn the north the Knights of the Teutonic Order were given a helping hand by the Swedish princes. Novgorod had been saved by its prince, Alexander. on July 15 , 1240. The Knights, however. tried again shortly thereafter. They sta rted out from Livonia and conquered the Russian cities of Isborsk and Pskov. Never had the danger been greater, and Alexander Nevsky had to take up arms again to defend his land; this time the Teutonic Knights aimed directly at the capital. Alexander launched a crushing counter-offensive; the army of Novgorod liberated Pskov and immediately afterwards engaged the invaders on the thick layer of ice that covered Lake Peipus. The Knights of the Teutonic Order, weighed down by their heavy suits of armor, suffered a shattering defeat because the ice crust began to crack under them. The Russians managed to save themselves by retreating in time, but the Nordic crusaders were ingloriously swallowed up in

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9. Two knights 0/ the Teutonic Order with their visors QI'er their faces. The Knights were Crusaders who

fo ught to bring the Christian faith to the lands 0/ flortllem Europe.

the icy waters of the lake. This event occurred on April 5, 1242. Alexander Nevsky, who had saved Novgorod in two wars, and who had defended the freedom of SI. Sophia against the demands of the Tartars, the Swedes, and the Teutonic Knights, was proclaimed a

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saint of the Russian Church, which decreed for him the honor reserved only for the greatest national heroes. But Tartar rule was to continue for a long time. It was not until 1380 that a military leader appeared who was capable of standing up to the Mongols of

10. The invasion of the Teutonic Knights came to a halt with the Russian ,,;crory all Lake Peipus; the Knights' heavy suits of armor caused the layer of ice that had formed on the lake's surface 10 break, and mosl of the Crusaders perished. These are scenes from the film "A lexander Nevsky" by the Russian director, Serge Eisenstein.

the Golden Horde. This leader, Dmitri , was not the Prince of Novgorod, but the Prince of Moscow. The capital of the territories of St. Sophia, in fact, was already in a period of decadence, whereas the principality of Rostov and Suzdal was increasing its power from year to year, due to the steady growth of Moscow. The first victory over the Horde was achieved after a fierce battle fou ght at Kulikovo, in the Don valley. Dmitri was honored with the name Donskoi (Demetrius of the Don ). It was not a definitive victory, but the news that the Tartars were no longer invincible created an enormous sensation in every corner of the Russia n land and made it clear to all that the country would be in a position to liberate itself from the foreigners' yoke, once it was united . The Great Principality of Moscow, indeed, had all the requisites to assume the role of the activating and organizing center of national life. However, it was against Moscow and its territory that henceforth the T artars or the Lithuanians unleashed their offensives, and Moscow ended by becoming the fortress that defended all Russia . Dmitri Donskoi extended the territories of the principality by also subjugating Novgorod. Ivan III made this occupation definite. At last, taking advantage of the struggles that for some time now had been weakening the Golden Horde, Ivan bluntly refused to pay the centuries-old tribute to the invader. In response, the Mongols did something most unusual: they entered into an alliance with the Lithuanians, with the intention of bringing the Grand Prince of Moscow to reason by placing him between two fires. But Ivan III triumphed; Russia was freed from the yoke of the invaders, and Moscow now beca me its capital. Moscow's position was further strengthened by Ivan's marriage to the niece of the

last emperor of Byzantium , Sophia Paleologus. Subsequently, the Russia n people considered Moscow the successor of Byzantium, a succession that was both political a nd religious. A few years later, a nephew of Ivan III assumed the title of Czar or "Caesar." Moscow was now the third R ome. At the beginning of the eighteenth century Russia was again engaged in another struggle, equally grave for the salvation of her territory and independence. Once more the danger came from the northwest, from Sweden, one of the great European powers of that time. Actually the Swedish action was a counteroffensive, since the war had been started by the Russians. But this in no way deprives this undertaking, ventured by one of the greatest military leaders of Europe, Charles XII, of its importance. At that time the Russia n throne was occup ied by Peter I. He was to pass into history as Peter the Great: a giant in stature, unconventional a nd exuberant, barbarous and impatient, and wholly bent upon making Russia into a modern European power. He had devoted the greater part of his time to preparing an army that could stand comparison with other Western armies, to building a navy for his country, to abolishing the outworn customs which were at the roots of Russia's backwardness. For this reason he undertook a long journey to Europe in order to check personally on how Westerners were living. He worked incognito as a carpenter in a Dutch shipyard , he went to lectures at a German university, and also attended several sessions of the British Parliament. Even though these experiences had little effect on his profoundly Russian temperament, and even though such exposures had done little to refine his manners, this journey and his contact with friend s abroad

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11. Tamer/one a Mongol leader in cen tral Asia, who claimed descent from Genghis Khan. His warriors occupied most of Russia, destroying and pil/aging every where they went. 12. Peter the Great, aile 0/ the most singular figures of Russian history, and (he firsl architect of hi,~ coun try's power. /3 . A Cossack encampment. The defection 0/ th e Cossacks and Ihe failure 0/ Mazeppa's secession were amollg the principal causes lor th e deleat suffered by Charles XII.

strengthed Peter's resolve to make Russia a country abreast of the times. After defeating the Turks and conquering Azov, Peter the Great turned his attention to the northern borders, forging an alliance with Poland, Saxony, and Denmark against Sweden. There was a very simple reason for this war: namely to give Russia a port that would allow her to have not only a bastion but also a commerical outlet to the Baltic Sea. As regards Charles XII of Sweden, historians are in agreement as to his stubborn character, his physical stamina , and his military skill. He had ascended the throne at the age of fifteen , in 1697, and in the beginning he had deeply disappointed the great dignitaries of the realm because it seemed that he took no interest at all in the affairs of state. But the war against the Czar of Russia transformed him completely, inducing him to study military strategy seriously. Sweden had an excellent army, magnificently equipped with artillery pieces made of iron from her own mines. As soon as King August the Strong of Poland , aided by the Saxon army, tried to conquer Riga, and Denmark attacked Schleswig, a state allied with Sweden, Charles XII effected a landing in front of Copenhagen and after unleashing a real Blitzkrieg, he forced the Danes to surrender. At that very moment Peter ordered his army to march against Sweden: 30,000 Russians besieged the city of Narva, but the Swedes rushed to the help of the attacked city and met the Russians head-on in the open field. The battle was fought on November 19, 1700, in a raging blizzard. The foot soldiers and cavalrymen .fould hardly see each other. The Russians were defeated, and the Czar made himself ridiculous because he had left the encampment on the day before the battle "in order to seek reinforcements."

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All Europe harshly criticized this sovereign who seemed to have been so cowardly as to abandon his luckless soldiers. The victory filled the Swedes and their king with enthusiasm. They held long meetings on the next step that should be taken. Some of the advisers argued that now was the time to face Poland resolutely since the fight with Denmark and Russia could be considered over - while others favored a full attack against Russia. According to them , revolution inevitably would break out in Moscow and in the other cities as a result of the severe defeat suffered by Peter 1. Thus the Swedes would be able to take advantage of the deep discontent that the Czar had provoked among the different social strata of his subjects. Charles XII listened to the two factions and made his decision ; he attacked Poland , putting off the encounter with Russia until the flow of his supplies and equipment was ensured. These supplies were to be taken from the Poles. Peter made good use of the precious time that had been granted to him by moving north , towards the Gulf of Finland, and Livonia, while the whole country was mobilized to reconstitute the army and to replace the artillery pieces that had been lost at Narva. These were unforgettable, heroi c years for the Czar and for Russia. Hundreds of church bells were melted down to be turned into cannon, while the army increased on the Baltic coasts. The Czar personally supervised the works for the construction of a new city at the mouth of the Neva - the longedfor port on the northern frontiers of the country, St. Petersburg, the modern-day Leningrad. Only a wooden fortress was built at first. Later, provisions were made to layout the port and soon the first buildings were constructed. Peter was a man who

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never took "no" for an answer and who knew the best system for getting what he wanted. When the question arose of conveying large numbers of masons, carpenters, and craftsmen to the new city, he did not hesitate to issue an unusual edict: only wooden houses henceforth could be built in Russia! With this law he literally forced masons, smiths, and all artisans whom the edict had driven into unemployment to transfer to St. Petersburg. Thus Russia succeeded in opening for herself a window on Europe ; it was a city born of nothing, in a swampridden, malaria-infested zone, constantly under the threat of inundation. The Swedes vainly tried to destroy the city which was coming into being. Peter doggedly defended his child and even launched a counter-offensive, beating the enemy several times and occupying fortresses and cities, among them the ill-fated Narva, where he perpetrated a massacre in which not even children and women were spared. Finally, however, Charles XII, having gotten the upper hand over Saxony and Poland, turned his attention to Russia. Peter sounded the alarm to his whole empire and ordered cities to be fortifi ed, including Moscow. Further, he ordered the evacuation of Pskov and established his headquarters at Grodno. He was aware that he was on the eve of a duel to the death. The assault on Russia began with one of those strategic moves characteristic of the capricious and enterprising King of Sweden, who struck at the point where the Russians felt most secure. Charles XII swept past the frontier by crossing the Niemen , and attacked Grodno, taking possession not only of the city but also of its warehouses. The surprise action, however, turned out badly, since Charles XII did not

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14 . Mazeppa the Cossack leader who had promised the Swedish king that 30,000 Cos.fllch would lend a strong helping hand to his (lfmy (lRa;lIsl Peter the Great.lnstead, Ihe Cossacks remained loyal to Ille Czar. 15. Charles XII of Sweden, olle of history's great Kellerals. His attempt to conquer Russia failed 01 Pol/a va: the Swedish army was wiped Olit by the Russians under Peler ' he Greal.

16. Smoiellsk, a city which has always been/atoll), in th e path 0/ aff armies that haw! illraded Russia.

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succeed in capturing the Czar as he had hoped. The Czar had left for SI. Petersburg only a short while before! The capture of Grodno, however, made Peter understand that the war would be long and terrible. So the Czar issued an order: retreat to the east leaving the enemy a scorched earth on which he would find nothing of use to him. At the same time Peter T made Charles XII know that he would agree to a peace whenever Sweden would agree that Russia could keep her port in SI. Petersburg. Charles XII was still convinced that it would not be difficult to beat the Russians, whose army had been hastily improvised and who did not have at their disposal all the artillery and equipment that formed the pride of the Swedish army. He replied that he would negotiate with the Czar, but only in Moscow. It soon dawned upon the Swedes, however, that they had plunged into a nasty adventure: Russia was terrifyingly vast; the country had no roads and offered neither provisions nor supplies for the men and the horses. Slowly the army of Charles XII opened a path for itself in the direction of Golovchin, through the forests of Minsk. It was necessary to build a road yard bY' yard, so that the wagons could get through. But this first required that the trees be cut down to force an opening. Then the thaw set in and the bridgeless rivers swelled, the plains became morasses, the horses died, the soldiers were exhausted and supplies began to run dangerously low. The Swedes crossed the Berezina and quartered in Mogilev . Hope for reinforcements from the homeland dwindled from day to day, since news had arrived that the Russian army was on the move to prevent a junction between the forces coming from Latvia and those of Charles XII. An extraordinary personage in Russian history then

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came to the aid of the invaders. This was the "Hetman" Ivan Mazeppa, the chieftain of the Cossacks of the Ukraine. The Cossacks had always claimed their independence vis-ii-vis the central government, but up to that time they could not do much to achieve their freedom. Mazeppa reckoned that Peter I eventually would surrender to the invader, and hence thought that the hour of the Ukraine's independence had struck. It seems confirmed, however, that when the invasion began, Charles XII had already obtained a promise that the Ukraine would help the Swedes: Mazeppa assured him that 30,000 Cossacks would take up arms against Peter. The Czar went into action. While on the one hand he met head-on the auxiliary body of troops for which Charles was still waiting, on the other he openly accused Mazeppa of apostasy from the faith for having allied himself with Protestant invaders. The Hetman replied by accusing the Czar of tyranny, but when the chips were down Mazeppa delivered only 3,000 Cossacks to Charles XII : the Ukraine had not betrayed the faith , and the Russians took Mazeppa's city - Baturin - by storm, sacking it and impaling the traitor's partisans. By November 1708, the situation .of the Swedes was very precarious. The army of fresh troops, bringing badly needed supplies, had been destroyed, the Cossacks were no real help, and Peter I was drawing perilously near. Charles XII still seemed determined to bring the war to a conclusion and hoped that the Turks would take advantage of his expedition to brave their centuries-old enemy and that even the Tartars in the Crimea would take to the field on his side. On the hasis of such considerations he decided to lay siege to a Russian fortress, Poltava. He wanted to make it known that he was continuing to advance

and to win in the heart of Russia. Wearing an ordinary soldier's uniform, sleeping on the ground in a tent like those of his soldiers, contenting himself like his troops with a small daily ration of hardtack , refusing the coat that Mazeppa had offered him as a gift, Charles XII tried to infuse courage into his men , although the army was now stripped of artillery and munitions. According to some military experts the Swedish invasion failed only because of a series of mishaps. Peter I met the invaders under the walls of Poltava and defeated them after a long battle whose outcome was uncertain throughout. It seems that Charles XII dangerously divided and broke up his troops and that he could not efficiently command the battle because of a foot wound. The fact is that at Po!tava, when the Swedes were on the point of surrender, Peter I threw his reserves into the fray , and it was then that the Czar gave orders to his artillery to fire on the invaders at point-blank range. The battle had begun on the morning of June 27, 1709, and at noon 8,000 of the Swedes were in flight, while an equal number lay in heaps on the ground or were prisoners of the Russians. Peter I had put more than 42,000 men in the field and at the end of the battle the officers reported that the army had lost 1,435 soldiers, while another 3,290 were wounded. The Russian superiority in the matter of artillery had been overwhelming: 72 cannon to 4. The Czar realized that the victory had been won only because of this superiority, and in the evening he proposed a toast in honor of the Swedish officers and prisoners of war, hailing them as masters of the art of warfare. At that very moment Charles XII was desperately galloping towards Russia's southern frontiers with a handful of ioyal followers, in order to seek safety in Turkish territory.

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17. A Russian floblemall. More dramatically than anywhere else. the gllff between a minority 0/ privileged persons and the great masses was a characteristic 0/ Russian 1Ii.~tory. Clrarles XIl, Napoleoll and H itler counted 011 a rebellion 0/ the Russian people agai/lst tlie regimes thaI dominated them. 18. Prince Potemkin's Russian troops attacking the jortress at Oehaka\'. Th e prince, a favorite 0/ Catherine 0/ Russia, slIcceeded in removing the Turkish threat (0 file Russiml f rontier.

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Emperor Napo/eon' s Grandiose Dream

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"Are we not the soldiers of Austerlitz?"

19. In 1812. a "all-million soldiers from all pariS of Europe mOI"eel itl a constant flow towards the Russian fronti ers: Nap(>/ nl'm was ahoUl to fllZ/cash his ollslaught.

A boatload of sappers was the first element of the invasion army to cross the Russian border - the Niemen River. Their boat silently cut its way through the swift-moving current and soon pulled alongside the opposite bank. Cautiously, the soldiers landed on Russian soil and looked around. Strangely enough there was not a soul in sight. Some officers on horseback had remained on the other side of the river and behind them, waiting silently, were several crack units of skirmishers. The bulk of Napoleon's army was hidden from view, being well concealed behind the heights and in the thickness of the woods. The sapper patrol moved up for a few yards in the direction of the forest, from which a Russian cavalryman suddenly emerged, riding directly up to them. He was a Cossack officer. Some slipped their arms through the slings of their muskets but did not have time to load them. The Cossack, making his horse rear in front of the intruders, demanded: "Who are you?" "Frenchmen." "What do you want?" " We have come to wage war on you!" one of the soldiers snapped. "And to take Vilna and liberate Poland!" Tn reply the officer spurred his horse and galloped off wildly towards the woods. Some soldiers managed to fire their muskets at his retreating figure, but the Cossack quickly reached the forest and in seconds he was safe among the birch trees. The date was June 22 , 1812. Thus began the war between Emperor Napoleon and Czar Alexander's Russia. No diplomat had officially announced the start of hostilities, but it was no sec ret that a war between them was in the offing. At any rate as soon a s the Cossack officer reached his encampment a

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20. Napoleoll crowned Em peror. A II Ihe monarchs

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Europe realized 11,01 the "little corporal," having come so far, would never set a limit to his ambitions. So they prepared ( 0 de/end their own crowns.

2 J. Josephine de Beauharnais, the Creole widow whom Napoleon had married in 1796, when he was at th e beginnillg 0/ his ca reer. The need lor Ofl heir to llis throlle induced Napoleoll to dinolve this marriage alld marry M arie Louise 0/ Austria. 22. Napoleoll's marriage was celebrated if! 1810.

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Marie Louise

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courier was despatched to Vilna with the news that the invasion had begun . The Czar was immediately informed ; at that moment he was a guest in the palace of the ci ty's most aristocratic famil y and was dancing with his beautiful hostess.

Nearly four months before, on March 2, the crack artillery unit of the Italian division of Napoleon's army had pulled out of Verona bound for the Brenner Pass. Nobody knew where the soldiers were going, not even their commanders. Besides, it was not the first time that Itali ans were being enlisted to follow the French Emperor in his undertakings. But this time there was a general and uneasy feeling that Napoleon was preparing something really big. Various signs justified the apprehension of the local populace: the severe conditions attached to the enlistments, the meticulousness of the preparations, the extraordinarily great agglomeration of men , munitions, and supplies. Among the troops rumors were rampant: some claimed that the army was bound for Austria and Prussia, while others assured their comrades that Poland was to be their destination. The one bare fact seemed to be that somewhere in Central Europe the Italian contingent would be attached to armies coming from the other countries of the empire in order to form that army which already had a name: the Grand Army. Filippo Pisani , a young officer, was one of these soldiers who bade his wife a sad farewell that morning in Verona. He was a native of the city and had spent his last night at home; at dawn he had reported to his barracks and now he was marchin g with his soldiers through the streets of the city in a northerly direction, towards the road leading to the Brenner

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23. The King 0/ England views Napo/eon. in a caricature by Gillray. After the de/eat at Tralalgar, Napoleon gave up the idea of invading England. But he hoped to bend his irreducible enemy to his will throuch the continental blockade.

24. Napoleon taking his leave trom Czar A lexa"der of Russia, afler the meeting at Tilsi!. The friendship was 0/ brief duratioll. 25. The Spanish people also resisted Napoleon's attempt to dominate Europe: they bled the French arllly white in a desperate guerrilla war.

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Pass. People were gathered along the streets and leaning out of windows to watch the parade, but the fanfare and the waving banners did not ease the tension that weighed upon the city. When the artillery unit passed under the windows of Pisani's house, a young women rushed headlong out of the doorway. The officer embraced his wife once more, not without a little embarrassment, but then he was forced to drop out of the ranks because the poor girl was about to faint. "Supporting her in my arms," wrote Filippo Pisani in his diary later, "I led her back to the house and I had doubly to inflict on her the pang of such a cruel separation." Similar scenes took place all over Europe during those days. From France, from Holland, from all the German states, from Italy, from the Kingdom of Naples, from Austria and from Spain, from all Europe, which was now under the imperial sway of the great Corsican military chieftain - endless columns of soldi ers were marching towards the east with gigantic convoys of horses, mules, herds of livestock, fodder, baggage, victuals, flour, munitions, artillery pieces. Nobody had ever seen such a spectacle before: a half-m illion men, with all their supplies, were getting ready to carry out a truly exceptional and breath-taking enterprise. Only at the apex of this colossal military organization was there a person who knew for sure just what the general staff in Paris was planning and perfecting to the last detail: Napoleon had decided to launch an attack against Russia that would bring her to her knees once and for all. The reasons for this new war were not clear to everybody, but so great was the confidence in Napoleon's invincibility that none of those who were aware of what was really afoot were unduly concerned. At the age of 43, Napoleon was

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the most powerful, the most feared, and the most idolized man in the world. Had he not brought his armies to every corner of the continent, after overcoming all obstacles? For better or worse, Europe had been forced to recognize his authority; even proud Austria, ruled by the oldest dynasty in the world, the Hapsburgs, paid him obeisance. Only the Spaniards, stubbornly, were still waging a strange guerrilla war against the French; but it was a war without quarter and also, apparently without hope. Indeed Spain was hardly a foe worthy of Napoleon. The only real adversary was England, an irreducible and astute enemy, which was in a position to fight with a weaponry that matched his and to wreak considerable havoc on the structure of Napoleonic Europe. The ultimate aim of the war against Russia actually was to strike at England indirectly, and to blunt one of her major weapons, the economic one. Napoleon had ordered an "economic blockade" in order to bring about England's defeat ; it was the first real example of a "cold war" in modern history. No country in Europe was allowed to trade with the English. After having vainly dreamed of invading the island, Napoleon hoped to bend the country to hi s will by closing all the ports of the continent to English ships and thus ruin the English economy. The news from London was awaited with great trepidation in Paris: England was holding out by the skin of her teeth, but her warehouses were overflowing with unsold goods and the numbers of bankruptcies rose from day to day. In Paris it was still hoped that eventually England would come to terms. The economic blockade indeed turned out to be an effective weapon, but in order for it to achieve its full purpose it had to be strictly observed by every cou n-

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tryon the continent. Russia, instead, had decided to open her ports to neutral shipping, and this meant that she would acquire a good measure of English goods. Napoleon could not permit a defection of this kind in the united economic front against England , especially since Ru ssia had now become a part of Napoleonic Europe in which she occupied an important place. The treaty of alliance between Napoleon and the Czar in fact went back to 1807, to the period immediately followin g the string of Napoleonic victories at Austerlitz, Eylau, and Friedland. Actually, at that time Ru ssia was faced with a poverty of available choices. The terms of the treaty had been agreed upon in a picturesque setting: the first talks between the Czar and Napoleon had taken place in frantic haste in the middle of the Niemen River, off the Prussian city of Tilsit. There, under a gaudy canopy, the Emperor had "convinced" the defeated Czar Alexander to enter into an alliance with France against England. The Czar was in no position to be fastidious, since Russia was no longer able to put up a fi ght against France. On the other hand Napoleon now offered defeated Russia a glimpse of the advantageous possibilities available to her : if the two powers pledged themselves to work jointly in an effort to break the stubborn English resistance, France would be able to gain politica l and economic dominion over Europe, and Russia would obtain hegemony over Asia, and particularly over India . After all, Napoleon had insi nuated, what comparable advantages could the English government offer Ru ssia? Napoleon invited the Czar to ponder the results of British policy: English diplomacy had cleverly succeeded in convi ncing Europeans to bleed themselves white in a long exhausting struggle against France, while the

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English impassively looked on from afar. In the face of these arguments Alexander ended up by accepting the bid to enter into an alliance with Napoleon. Some highly placed personages at the Russian Court called the alliance shameful, but the Czar's rejoinder was that he had no choice but to accede to Napoleon's demands. No doubt Napoleon had shown great diplomatic skill and personal charm: he went so far as to invite Alexander to Tilsit, since the Czar could not enjoy the conveniences fittin g to his rank in the Russia n camp. Tn fact , Napoleon offered the Czar the hospitality of the palace in which he himself had his headquarters, and his magnanimity as victor included an invitation to the monarch to sit at his table inasmuch as Alexander had no cooks. What happened in Tilsit during those days scandalized the Russian aristocracy and the conservatives of all Europe; the Czar had always been considered the high priest of legitimism and here he seemed to be fascinated by the attentions and courtesies of this wily uSlirper, this common soldier, this spawn of the French Revolution, the man who had erected liberty trees in all the squares of Europe and ordered monarchs around with the air of an arrogant corporal. The Czar tried to convince his advisers that, after all, Napoleon was not as perfidious as he was painted; in the long run, all things considered , Russia would get the better of it, he assured them. For his part, Napoleon devoted much of his time to the Czar, engaging him day after day in conversations even at table. After their repasts he would stroll around the palace grounds with the Czar, and then talk to him with the utmost frankness , closeted for a long time in the privacy of a well-heated salon . Tn the end the Emperor explicitly told his confidants that he had really

26. Th e stages of Napoleon's march ;nlo th e heart of Russia. 27. Napoleon 's departure for Russia: the Grand Army was waiting for him alollg the Niemell River on the Prussiall frolltier.

done a good job in convincing the Czar to throw in his lot with France. No doubt he was right: in a relatively short time this common soldier, who seemed invincible on the field of battle and who seemed ill at ease in the fetters of the court ceremonial, had succeeded in winning over the sovereign who had been most hostile to him ; he had made a friend of the humiliated and disarmed foe. Tn the course of time, however, the Czar's friend ship had been noticeably cooling off, and Napoleon's attempts to kindle it again had been in vain. Isolated in his palace of St. Petersburg, Alexander finally had yielded to the internal opposition, which had never approved of the unnatural alliance with Napoleon. The Russian opponents of the alliance based their objections not only on political arguments, but on sound economic reasoning as well, and it was the latter which induced the Czar to review his relations with France. Actually, a great part of Russian imports came from markets which were very sensitive to English influence, and the continental blockade, de signed to effect England's ruin, threatened to produce an economic collapse in Russia too. Another reason for friction between the two allies, one which perhaps was more linked to the preceding one than appears at first sight, lay in Napoleon's second marriage. The Emperor had decided to contract a new marriage in order to ensure the birth of an heir to the throne, which his first wife - Josephine - had been unable to give him. Naturally Napoleon also hoped to mend some political fences through such a marriage. His Parisian advisers looked around and duly reported that there were only three princesses avai lable: one in England, the second in Austria, and the third in Russia. Since the first was automatically excluded from the competi-

tion, only two candidates seemed to be left: the daughter of the Austrian Emperor, Marie Louise of Hapsburg, and the younger sister of the Czar, Anna Pavlovna. The choice was dictated by political motives primarily, in that Napoleon did not know either of the young ladies concerned. Tn Paris, well-informed persons began to whisper that France would be at war against the power that lost the contest. Tn effect, at first, Napoleon's diplomats seemed to take fondly to the idea of forging a bond of kinship between the Czar and the Emperor of France with the aim of suffocating Austria and repressing her sundry aspirations. As a resu lt Russia found herself in the very embarrassing situation of having to turn Napoleon down: after all, objected the Czarina, Anna Pavlovna was only fourteen years old. The choice, therefore, fell on Marie Louise of Austria, and Napoleon found himself in a good position for an eventual war with Russia, at the very moment when the Czar, yielding to court opposition, decided to slacken the bond with France. Russia's aforementioned decision to open her ports to neutral shipping could be interpreted only as an obvious denunciation of the treaty of friendship. Throughout Europe all the pure, rare, and very expensive English products that the police could get their hands on only now and then were publicly burned. France could not run the risk of neu tral ships' bringing English goods to Russia inasmuch as Russia inevitably would allow such cargoes to filter beyond the frontiers. Therefore Paris indicated that Russia should refrain from making a dent in the economic blockade. But Russia made it known that she was forced to take unpleasant decisions because of the critical state of her economy as a direct result of the end of commercial relations with England. Further, Russia

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28. Napoleon and Alexander at th e time 0/ the 1It/lio/ural al/iance be tween France and Russia.

The Czar presents 10 Napoleon his Cossacks, Bashkirs and Kalmuks. 29. The Tilsil meeting took place ill the middle 0/ the Nie men River, in a pavilion built 0 11 board a ra/I. /1 was probably the most picturesque "summit meeting" in all history .

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announced an increase of customs duties on French exports to Russia, such as wines. All this took place around the year 1810. In the first months of 1811 Napoleon began to weigh the risks and the chances of success of a war against Russia, while the relations between the two countries became increasingly tense and unstable.

Probably Czar Alexander was not looking (or war, but merely wanted to loosen connections in order to free himself from the over-burdensome alliance with France. Napoleon was a very demanding master. The French ambassador to St. Petersburg - M arquis Louis de Cau laincourt - tried to apprise Paris of Alexander's real intentions, but the Emperor seemed adamant, so much so, in fact, that he brusquely told Caulaincourt that France had not the slightest reason to be concerned about a war with Russia: "A single battle will be enough to nullify all the magnificent decisions of your friend Alexander and all his fortifications made of sands." The plan, as elaborated , was of a disconcerting simplicity and was summarized in the three words " a single battle." The Ru ssian army, it was conjectured , would not be able to hold out against the onslaught of Napoleon's troops, and the Czar would be forced to yield , to sue for peace and to promise obedience. Napoleon ended up by convincing himself that the war would not be difficult to wage and that actually it would make it crystal clear to all Europe that France would not brook any autonomous decisions. When a dictator persuades himself that he can win a wa r, he always finds the way to demonstrate its inevitability and the opportunity to start it . Certainly it wou ld have been difficult to criticize Napoleon on this

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point: he had already defeated Russia o n the fi eld of battle and was convinced that the Czar did not have a single general of any real stature. Moreover, Russia appeared as the open door leading to Asia, to the dream that he had pursued one time when he landed in Egypt, to the heart of the British Empire, along the route on which the armies of Alexander the Great had marched. At the beginning of 1812, a steady stream of supplies began to fill the warehouses in Prussia : hardtack, dried meat, oats, and flour , lots of flour. This was followed by an influx of horses and mules. The battalions came last and soon swelled into divisions and armies. War had not yet been declared, but it was inevitable. By dint of forced marches, a half-mi llion men traversed Europe on foot, while the general in charge of the commissariat, Count Pierre-An toin~ Daru , wore himself out wrestling with the job of getti ng all the supplies to converge on the Prussian front ier. Detailed plans had been worked out in Paris, a nd nothing was left to chance. Nopoleon had dispatched orders to the sovereigns who ruled Europe for him by proxy, and now he was waiting for these orders to be carried out to the letter. The army that would open the gates of the East to him would be composed of 300,000 French, Belgian and Dutch soldiers and 200,000 conscripts coming from lllyria, Westphalia , Bavaria, that part of the Kingdom of Italy of which Napoleon's stepson, E ugene de Beauharnais, was Viceroy, the Kingdom of Naples, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, the Rh ineland , Baden, Sa~ony, Prussia, and Austria. No general anywhere cou ld have had at his disposal an army as powerful as the Grand Army. Hence Napoleon's belief that he could induce Russia to

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yield before the war actually began is not surprising. Alexander's army was a third the size of Napoleon's. Moreover there were no advantages for him in risking the invasion: Napoleon's army would liberate Poland, which the Russians still kept under their rule, and perhaps he might grant freedom to the serfs, producing a real cataclysm in the backward Russian world.

The imperial coach left the palace of St. Cloud at six o'clock on a morning in May, bound for the Rhine border. After a week the coach arrived in Dresden, where the absolute master of Europe's destiny found the King of Saxony, the King of Prussia, various Grand Dukes, and even Marie Louise's father, the Emperor of Austria, waiting for him. Various talks were held which extended over several days, while Napoleon personally checked on the finishing touches that were being put on the preparations for the invasion. There was no news of any kind from the opposite bank of the Niemen. As far as the uni ts deployed along the frontier and the marshals (still detained in Dresden due to the presence of so many sovereigns) knew, the two armies which the Czar had placed in the field were waiting for the showdown. The Russian first army was led by the 70year-old Minister of War, Prince Michael Barclay de Tolly, a general in whom his soldiers did not place much confidence. Among other things, they thought that he was of German origin, though in reality his family was of Scottish descent. The commander of the second army, on the other hand, was an exceedingly popular general, the 47year-old Peter Bagration, who had been the favorite pupil of Russia's brilliant strategist, General Suva-

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30. AI/other English caricature of Napoleon, whom British sailors familiarly called "Bail ey," the diminutive 0/ Bonaparte. 31. "Th e French man;n German y ," an anon ymous popula r drawing of the time. 32. Napoleoll had a bound less confidence ill his army: l or yea rs French troops had been ro l/;ng up a 101lg, impressh'e :,·trill g 0/ victo ries.

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rov. A man of resolute character, he had often given proof of great courage. He was one of the few men who dared to assume responsibility, and this was no small thing in the Russia of that time. Bagration's army numbered half as many effectives as were entrusted to Barclay de Tolly. The Czar's best advisers hoped that the supreme command would be entrusted to Bagration. Alexander, however, did not have the courage to make this decision , because it would have displeased his Mini ster of War. Thu s, while the most formidable army that had ever been seen made haste to invade Russia, Alexander divided his forces , already considerably inferior, in two, entrusting them to the command of two generals who were practically independent of each other and who inevitably would be eyeing each other with growing mistrust. Everything was now in a state of readiness on both banks of the Niemen. Napoleon left hi s consort and his court at Dresden. On the morning of June 21 he arrived at the frontier, in the village of Vilkoviski , where he issued the invasion order, effective immediately. There was no time to lose and he signed the proclamation to the Grand Army in which he explained - or was believed to explain - the reasons for the war. "Russia has broken the pledge subscribed to at Tilsit: does she therefore consider us perfidious? Are we not the soldiers of Austerlitz? She places before us a dilemma: either honor or war. About our choice there is no doubt. Forward, then, let us cross the Niemen , let us bring the war to her territory. The peace that we shall conclude will be a permanent one and will put an end to the baleful influence that Russia has wielded over European affairs for the last fifty years." The movement of the various units began without

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33. All Ellrope had become a hilCe arsenal, from which Napoleon coilid drain men and materiel ;11 abllndallce lor every new ventllre. 34. Talleyrand and the Viceroy of Italy, Ellgene, were al.ro present at the meeting of Napoleon ami Alexander. 35. The two emperors ill the French theater Erfurt, where it seemed tlrat their alliance was definitively cemented.

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delay. The third regiment of light cavalry, ready to cross the river at the first order, was placed at the head of the army. Despite the precautions that had been taken, the first difficulties cropped up even before crossjng the Niemen. When it was time to distribute rations and munitions for the first days of the campaign, it was learned that several wagons had remained behind, so that only a few battalions could be supplied with rations for twenty-five days, as the Emperor had ordered. These mishaps, however, were considered temporary, but none could escape the feeling of foreboding that went along with them, inasmuch as the army was launching its undertaking under an unlucky sign. The intention indeed was to cross the frontier with the army at its peak effectiveness and surprise the Russian armies with an advance at lightning speed so as to sow confusion among them and force the Czar to surrender. The invaders were comforted by the thought that Vilna could be conquered after a swift advance and that there they would find excellent stocks of supplies of all kinds. Napoleon spent the last hours personally inspecting the different battalions. In front of each unit he would ask what officer positions in the table of organization were still vacant, then after inquiring about the merits of soldiers in the ranks he would appoint new officers on the spot. He would halt before veterans and flatteringly remind them of glorious past battles, accompanying his words with a friendly pat on the shoulder. He also knew how to imbue the younger, inexperienced soldiers with enthusiasm. But the truth was that no one would have been able to explain to one or the other the reasons or the necessity for this war that was about to start. The fact that English goods were breaking through

the "cotton curtain" of the continental blockade could hardly get anybody excited, much less convince them that it made war necessary. Shortly before giving the order to cross the frontier, Napoleon personally reconnoitered along the banks of the Niemen. The Emperor had arrived on horseback in the uncertain light that preceded the dawn of June 22 and had even ventured without protection on the beach. Had there been a sentry on the other side of the river, he would have been able to draw a bead on him, since the Emperor had appeared without any disguise. Indeed, he had even had an accident: the horse had slipped and Napoleon had been thrown on the sand on his back. As he picked himself up an officer in his retinue murmured that this was an evil omen and said in a loud voice: "A Roman would turn back! " Napoleon, pretending that he had not heard the remark, climbed back into the saddle and returned to his tent. The patrol of sappers silently crossed the river the moment the order was given. Shortly thereafter Napoleon heard some scattered shots and he looked troubled when he was told that the patrol had fired on a mounted Cossack: he feared that the Russian intention was to obstruct the movement of troops across the bridges that had been thrown hastily . across the river. For this reason he ordered that three hundred skirmishers were to establish the first bridgehead in order to protect the crossings over the three bridges. The skirmishers were specially picked troops assigned to every battalion, composed mainly of soldiers of short stature who carried lighter equipment than the rest and were trained to carry out special covering tasks and to effect swift maneuvers requiring a certain ease of movement.

The skirmishers had an easy task since there was no

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one waiting for them on the other bank of the river. "Then," according to Count Philippe-Paul de Segur's thrilling account of the invasion , "all the French columns poured out of the valleys and from the forest and advanced in silence up to the river, hidden by a thick veil of darkness. One had to touch them to be aware of their presence. Fires, including the least spark, had been forbidden. The soldiers slept with their weapons at their side, as if in the presence of the enemy. The rye field , green and moist because of the abundant dew, served as a bed for the men and as fodder for the horses. " The crossing began at dawn. Before entering the icy waters of the Niemen the soldiers turned their gaze, expressive of their e nthusiasm and devotion, towards the top of the hill o n which the Emperor's tent was perched . The crossing lasted for three days without let-up, but the French did not catch sight of a single Russian as they poured across the fronti er of that enormous and unknown country. The first army corps, under the command of Marshal Davout, was the first to cross, followed by the . second army corps under Marshal Oudinot, the third under Marshal Ney, the fourth led by Prince Eugene Beau harnai s, the son of Napoleon's first wife, the fifth corps (formed of four Polish divisions convinced they were fightin g for their county's independence) under Prince Poniatowski, the sixth under General Saint-Cyr, the seventh under Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphali a (Napoleon's brother), the ninth under Marshal Perrin , the tenth (which was formed of Prussians) under Ma rshal Macdonald , the eleventh under Marshal Bessieres; and the Austrian expeditionary corps under Prince Schwarzenberg. The four cavalry corps under the command of the King of Naples, Joachim Murat, also made their way across the river.

36

Napoleon was restless and impatient to cross the river quickly. The French officers seemed to be in a gay mood; never before had the Emperor led an army against the unknown and even the Emperor seemed excited. The haste with which he had ordered the crossing was proof of it. Probably for the first time since the Egyptian campaign he felt that he was close to the realization of a grandiose dream : to go even farther than Alexander the Great himself had done, and to open the road leadi ng to the outermost limits of the world. As soon as the Emperor crossed the river a terrible storm broke and the temperature dropped ; the torrid heat suddenly turned into bitler cold. Each of the different army corps continued its march, even though the paths had been flooded in the brief spa n of two hours, causing the wagons carrying provisions and munitions, tents and victuals, to get mired in the muck from which it was impossible to free them . In the buoyant feeling of that particular day, in the excitement of the beginning of such an incred ible and adventurous undertaking, nobody seemed to be very much worried about what was happening to the supply wagons. They were left there to hamper the movement of the multitude of soldiery ever pressing forward. As for the Russians, the French could not sight even one of them. In effect they were out of their reach; Barclay de Tolly's first army was spread out between the Vilna and Kovno, while the second army under Bagration's command was concentrated farther south. The 20,OOO-man army of Prince Louis of Wittgenstein - the 43-year-old field marshal and veteran of the battle of Austerlitz - was deployed in the north, assigned to defend St. Petersburg from possible thrusts against the capital.

36. The crossing of the Niemen: several units of "skirmishers" were the first to cross the river.

37

37. The march of the Grwld Army was hampered fro m the very {irst by dif]iculties in bringing up the supply wagons and by the lack of roads. 38. Wh en the French crossed the Niemell, the Czar and his general staO were ollly a few miles away, but 110 Russian unit tried to oppose Napo/eon's advance.

Napoleon's immediate plan called for a very swift march up to Vilna: the Russians thereby would have been forced to face the Grand Army immediately, with no way to escape. On other occasions the Emperor had learned by experience that similar strategic moves yielded good fruit: it was a question of facing

the enemy when he stil! did not expect a clash and when his forces were stil! divided. Two or three battles of this kind would have forced the Czar to beg for peace, and would have opened to the Grand Army the road to Moscow, the fabulous city. When the first army corps arrived in one dash at the

38

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-- - ---

-

-.

'~---=-~----

--

Vilia river, a large stretch of water on the road to Kovno, they discovered that the retreating Cossacks had torn down the bridge. Napoleon, who was in Marshal Oudinot's vanguard, ordered a squadron of Poles to look for a fording place. Leo Tolstoy, in his masterpiece "War and Peace," tells how an old colonel who commanded the Polish Uhlans was excited by the opportunity that was being offered to him. " . . . the old whiskered officer, with happy face and sparkling eyes, brandished his sabre in the air, shouting, 'Vive I'Emperellr!' and commanding his men to follow him, he set spurs to his horse and galloped down to the river. He gave a vicious thrust to his horse that floundered under him and plunged into the water, making for the most rapid part of the current. Hundreds of Uhlans galloped in after him. It was cold and dangerous in the middle of the current. The Uhlans clung to one another, falling off their horses. Some of the horses were drowned, some of the men too. The others struggled to swim across, some in the saddle, others clinging to their horses' manes. They tried to swim straight across, and although there was a ford less than half a mile away they were proud to be swimming and drowning in the river. When the adjutant, on going back, chose a favorable moment and ventured to call the Emperor's attention to the devotion of the Poles to his person, the little man in the gray overcoat got up, and summoning Berthier, he began walking up and down with him, giving his instructions and casting now and then a glare of displeasure at the drowning Uhlans who had interrupted his thoughts." Tolstoy's account is very hard on Napoleon and even harder on the fanati cism of the Poles, but in its broad lines it coincides with that of Philippe de Segur, who was an eyewitness to the disaster.

38

It was decided not to run other senseless risks, and without wasting time, a bridge was thrown across the fatal river. The first army corps was finally able to cross and resume its swift advance. At the end of the second day of the march Oudinot's vanguard came within view of Vi Ina and halted to await the main body. While the various units were being arranged in battle order, some patrols were sent towards the city where the Czar and his general staff had stayed for one month. From the French lines some shots were heard in the distance , but the patrols returned with a piece of incredible news: Vilna was deserted. There was not a single Cossack in the city, and it would be possible to occupy the city without firing a shot. Napoleon asked himself whether the Grand Army might not have marched too slowly; the hard fact was that he had not succeeded in forcing the Russians to join battle and he had allowed them to retreat. The buoyant feelings of those first days vanished suddenly; the French officers exchanged worried glances and the marshals seemed to have lost their former good. humor. To make matters worse the warehouses in Vilna were empty: the Russians had been meticulous in their evacuation, in compliance with Barclay de Tolly's order that nothing was to be left to the invaders. This was the same order that Peter the Great had issued when the Russians had lured the Swedish army of Charles xn into their fatal trap.

39. The capture of Vi/flQ was arr all-too-easy victory: the Russians retreated without putting up a {icht. Napoleon began to fear that the conquest 0/ Russia would take much IOllger than he had originally pIal/lied.

The Horror of Smolensk

39

A Great Battle on the Threshold of Hell

40. Napoleon hoped to liquidate the Russian army at Smolellsk: actually tlie G rand A rmy ran into tough resis/once, bUI Barclay de Tolly pre/erred to abandon (he city before I"e arrival 0/ Russian rein/orceme.nls under Bagration's command.

There was not a great deal of choice in Vi Ina, so Napoleon's headquarters was set up in the same palace which two days earlier had been the headquarters of the Czar. When Balasov - the Czar's adjutant general- was ushered into the Emperor's presence he looked about him with a stupefied air: this was the very room to which the Czar had summoned him in order to entrust him with the delicate mission of delivering a message to Napoleon. Napoleon was in a bad humor and Balasov was quick to realize that his visit would not make him any happier. Alexander, upon handing his adjutant the personal message he had written for Napoleon, had authorized him to let Napoleon know that he could start peace negotiations whenever he pleased, even immediately, on the one condition that the Grand Army withdraw from Russian soil. Balasov was authorized to inform Napoleon that, if this offer was rejected, the Czar gave his word that there would be no further talk of peace so long as a single French soldier remained in Russia. Only now did Balasov become aware of how difficult his mission would be. Napoleon had hardly finished his breakfast and was brusquely issuing some orders. Through the open window came the noises of the street, the clamor made by the soldiery, the clatter of horses' hoofs, and, above all , the shouts of the enthusiastic Poles who were hailing what they considered to be the liberation of Poland. Napoleon read the Czar's message and in so far as he could understand it, he did not appreciate it. To Balasov he complained about Alexander's hostile attitude and declared that Russia had provoked the war: the Czar had betrayed his friendship and had not honored the pledges made at Tilsit. The Czar's messenger tried to say something in rebuttal, but it was not

4t

41

possible. Napoleon was beside himself. When a draft caused the shutters of the window to rattle, the Emperor, instead of closing the shutters, simply tore them off in a rage. This marked the end of the audience. Later Balasov was invited to dinner by Napoleon, and Caulaincourt, the former French ambassador to St. Petersburg, also took a seat at the table. But no progress was made and at the end of the dinner Napoleon ordered the Russian minister to be provided with his own horses so that he could reach the Czar as quickly as possible with his reply: if Russia did not come to terms, the Grand Army would force her to surrender. Balasov left and Napoleon remained alone to grapple with the problems of that war which though hardly begun was already in part compromised. His plan was based on the assumption that one or two battles would bring Russia to her knees, but what would happen if he did not succeed in persuading the Russians to fight right away? Meanwhile, the Grand Army continued its swift strides forward, conquering miles and miles of scorched earth, hundreds of deserted villages and empty warehouses, while losing hundreds of horses and weakening the troops every day.

The situation was also difficult for the Russians. Russia was not prepared for the war, and her generals did not have a plan; for the moment they managed to get out of their difficulties with flight. They avoided clashes with the enemy in order to avoid defeat, but this was not easy. Bagration had not been taken by surprise at Minsk only because he had disobeyed Barclay de Tolly's orders. Indeed, only because he had precipitately abandoned the

42

fortified camp in which he had deployed his troops was Barclay himself now in a position to make a relatively orderly retreat. The Russians, wondering from what direction Napoleon would strike next, tried to cover their retreat with a series of clashes fought by the rearguard, with the intention of reuniting the two armies at the most favorable moment. In order to prevent precisely this from happening, Napoleon dispatched Davout and Jerome Bonaparte (his brother, the King of Westphalia) to intercept Bagration. But the French had underestimated the Russian general, who managed to slip through the trap that had been laid for him. Indeed, Jerome, as a punishment for his failure , was forced to return to Westphalia by order of Napoleon, who was justifiably angry with him. Davout held out alone and he had to content himself with fighting against the Russian rearguard, the Cossacks under the command of Raevskii, a man about whom the French would be forced to talk often in the months to come. The only hope seemed to lie in a surprise onslaught on Yitebsk, and Napoleon planned a pinc~r maneuver against the city in order to encircle Barclay de Tolly's army and force it to give battle. At the dawn of July 27, the Grand Army arrived in sight of the city and the units spent the whole day arranging themselves in combat order. That night Napoleon remained awake for a long time in front of his tent, which had been pitched on the edge of a wood, in the center of the square formed by the "Old Guard"; he was watching the bonfires of the enemy encampment. In a few hours the desperately longed-for battle would begin. There was no doubt that the Russians would pay dearly for their temerity. Never had an enemy provoked such harshness in Napoleon.

4/. A Russia" floblemall Oil his sled. Contrary to Napoleoll's hopes, the Russian moujiks did lIot rebel {l[:!ainst their masters (lnd did 1I0t join Wilh the French "liberation" army.

42

42. The artillery of the Old Guard: the Guard was elite 1111;1 made up of troops specially c!lOse" for their skill (III(/ courage in combat and their loyallY /0 Napoleon. WI

But in the mo rning, when all were waiting for the signal to attack , Murat's patrols arrived with a shattering piece of news: the Russians had left, leaving Vitebsk undefended. Once more Barclay de Tolly had preferred to retreat towards the east rather than accept battle. This sensational happening dismayed Napoleon even more than that of Vilna. The tactic that the Russians had adopted was now crystal clear: they wanted to lure the invaders to penetrate ever more deeply into their territory. Why? The situation of the Grand Army was not at all favorable. The intolerable heat made rapid pursuit impossible, since the soldiers were hungry and the supply wagons were far behind. The warehouses in Vitebsk also turned out to be empty, and the horses were without forage. Napoleon remained in Vitebsk for a few days to ponder what he should now do. Russia was different from any other place in which he had ever been before and he could not fully grasp what was happening around him. Even in Ru ssia , as in Spain , a battle in the open field could decide the fate of a conquest. But he could not fight against a phantom army, either in Spain or in Russia. Before the invasio n began someone had assured Napoleon that the peasants - the serfs - certainly would welcomc joyfully the arrival of the liberating army, the army of the Revolution. Instead, the Grand Arm y was now marching day after day through an immense plain in flames , from which the peasants had fled after ca rting away everything that was transportable and after destroying what they could not take with them. The reports from the forward ele ments assured that nothin g useful could be fo und anywhere, since everything had been burned. Now and then there was some green wheat,

but at best this was only enough for the horses of the vanguard. Yet Napoleon felt that it was poss ible to bring this strange war to an end within the year. He could not shake off the fixed idea that it would be enough to face Barclay de Tolly and Bagration before they joined forces. The Emperor had no doubts on that score, despite his awareness of the fact that the Grand Army was in a difficult situation , that the soldiers were discontented to the point of preferring flight (but where could these wretched deserters flee?). Never before had the number of desertions been so high. But with just two battles of the kind in which Napoleon feared no rivals, Russia, this vast and un known. savage and incomprehensible country, would be at his feet. In such an event the Czar could not bu t surrender. Witnesses are agreed in affirming that these were painful days for the Emperor, tormented by indecisian: this Vitebsk that hed been conquered was only a name, a useless name in a boundless country, an agglomerat ion of houses and shacks, of buildings and cabins. for thousands of exhausted , famished , pillaging soldiers. an enormous hospital for 3,000 soldiers sick with dysentery, the absurd headquarters of an invasion army which lacked everything from meat to bread. It was pointed out to the Emperor that the enterprising Marshal Davout had made a brilliant discovery: the men could be made to eat rye that was roasted and cooked in water. Rye was not very nourishing - it cou ld best be used to make beer - but in this case it would se rve. The news was spread, to the general satisfaction: the Grand Army would not die of hungcr: it would be saved by the rye-pap. The Emperor's indecisio n lasted for a long time. He

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43. The French cavalry was under the command 0/ one of the most colorful and exuberant 0/ Napoleon's marshals, Joachim Murat , the King of Naples. 44. Napoleon cOllfers the ribbon of the Legion 0/ Honor on a non-commissioned officer who has distinguished himself in combat.

spent those days in meditation, writing letters, issuing orders, and trying to restore order into the enormous army of which, in spite of everything, he was so proud. He allowed the Austrians to turn back , because they were untrustworthy. But many of hi s orders remained a dead issue. Here he was not at Austerlitz, nOr at Marengo nor even at Wagram: he was in a desolate and unknown country where death seemed to reign supreme, where the distances were immense and where the patrols did not carry out their missions with an easy mind. Some advisers tried to instill doubt in the Emperor's heart. Had the Russian campaign been a colossal mistake from all points of view, tactically, militarily, and politically? And Napoleon was gnawed by doubt. Then he asked himself what the reaction in Europe would be if he admitted that he had been mistaken, if he did not give Russia the lesson she deserved? A throne like his could not survive a defeat, not even the renunciation of a victory. On the other hand Moscow, the holy city, was no longer so far away. Once Moscow was occupied, the Czar could do nothing but surrender. Perhaps the Russians themselves would drive Alexander out of the city. This struck Napoleon suddenly as a possible solution. The Emperor convened his marshals once more in order to listen to their suggestions, although he was convinced that now they would no longer tell him the truth. He knew that they no longer were the intrepid revolutionaries whom he had raised to military heights, and that it was not possible to ask them to be sincere as had been the case before. The only thing they could do now was to obey; perhaps they had never been able to do anything else. J n the last analysis, Napoleon was demanding too much of

44

them: they could never give him objective advice, but would limit them selves to following his will. So all that Napoleon could get the marshals to say at this conference was that they would gladly do everything that he wished. The only one who spoke up frankly was Count Pierre Daru, the man to whom the Emperor had assigned the difficult task of organizing the supplies for the campaign. Daru was disheartened. He said that they could never win, because the effectiveness of the Grand Army was now reduced by one third. "Many have deserted ," he pointed out. "Many have died because of the lack of provisions, others have been killed by sicknesses; in this war soldi ers do not die under fire but for the lack of rations. And we are st ill only at the doors of Ru ssia. The real Russia begins only after Vitebsk ; to continue is sheer madness." Napoleon said nothing, stubbornly fi xi ng his gaze on the ground; in his heart perhaps he was convinced that Daru was telling the truth. But the decision had been taken: the Grand Army could not turn back, Napoleon could not admit that hc had been beaten by an army of beggars ; the veterans of a hundred battles had to look the encmy squarely in the face. This was why they were in Russia , not to chase shadows! The Grand Army therefore would resu me its march; it would cross the Dnieper with 200,000 men and would resolutely march towa rds the east. towards the heart of mysterious and incomprehensible Russ ia. Forward to Smolensk!

The Czar meanwhile had returned to St. Petcrsburg in order to inspi re the populace of the capi tal with enthusiasm for the war (in reality he had been compelled to return because he was hampcring military

45

45. Napoleo" himself promoted l'ell turesom e ,wldiers to the rank of officer. 46. Durin!: military rel'iews, Napoleon wetlt lip to the soldiers and praised them for individual acts of valor. The troops reacted to this persollal touch with all ol'ef'w!Jelmi"g, enthusiastic allachmenl to the Emperor, 47. Supplies cOl/stituted the most se rious problem facing the Grand A rmy: the Russians left only .tcorched earth behind them,

46

operations at the front with his incompetence and his retinue) . From th ere the Czar had given explicit orders to Barclay de Tolly and to Bagration to defend Smolensk at all costs. The Russian army was not to retreat beyond this point. Smolensk, the Czar had declared , was the key to Russia: it was well fortified and highly defensible. Napoleon at last would have to be attacked, for which purpose the two Russian armies must join together to brave the invader. But A lexander's orders were irreparably faced with the disputes, the misunderstandings, and the hatred that separated the two commanders-in-ch ief. Bagration did not re lish the idea of joining lip with Barclay de Tolly because he cou ld not endure the thought of placing himself under the orders of the Minister of War. For his part, Barclay de Tolly could not endure the thought of facing Napoleon in a battle in the open field since he feared that the Grand Army would come out on top - and mark the end of hi s career.

It is said that Barclay was heard to S;\y: "Let Napoleon push forward ; the hunger and the cold will beat him." Bagration did not share this view and maintained that the army should defend Russia and put an end to this ignominious flight from the inva,Jing army. H e was not the only one to think along these lines: many officers and all the soldiers of the first Russian army spoke of Barclay not only as a German , but as one who had "sold out," as a traitor. Bagration knew about these sentiments amon g the troops and felt exactly the same way. Everyone knew that on many occasions he had protested against this strange way of waging a war by retreating. Now, before reaching Smolensk , he did not hesitate to put in writing an appeal directly to the Czar: "Forgive me, my sovereign, but T can have nothing in common

46

with the Minister. For the love of God, send me to any post whatsoever, even to the command of a regiment, but I can not stay here. The whole headquarters is full of Germ a ns, hence it is impossible for a Russian to live there and nothing can be achieved. I believed that I was sincerely serving the Czar and the country, but in the last analysis I am serving Barclay. I confess to you that I do not want to." This was not the best state of mind in which to [ace a battle. But precisely in order to force Barclay to remain in Smolensk, at least until his arrival, Bagration sent ahead one of his best generals, Raevskii , with orders to deploy his troops for the defense of the city. According to Bagration , even if Barclay were not a traitor, he was certainly acting like one. Napoleon arrived at Smolensk on the night of August 15. This time too the French encampment was in sight of the fire s of the Russian encampment. The Emperor decided that Smolensk should be attacked front ally with the combined assault of three army corps - Davout's, Ney's, and Poniatowski's - in order to make sure that the enemy would not slip away again. Napoleon dispatched M arshal Jounot around the city with the aim of eventually cutting off the route of the retreating Russians.

In the dawn of August 16 the French artillery began to pound the city and the defense lines that Raevskii had prepared before Smolensk. The orders that Raevsk ii had received from Bagration were precise: resist if necessary to the last man in order to give the second army time to arrive at the right time to force Barclay de Tolly to accept battle. Raevskii had with him only 15 ,000 men, veterans of former clashes, and the remnants of the Nevieroski

division which Ney had pursued up to Krasnoe. Despite this, Raevskii and hi s men were firmly resolved to brave the onslaught of Napoleon's army: the general was not one to question orders and his soldiers, shari ng the sentiments of all Ru ssia ns at this time, anxiously waited for an end of the retreat and for orders to take the offensive and launch a counterattack. While the French artillery pounded away at Smolensk, the three army corps were thrown into the assault and Jounot began his encircling maneuver, but the whole day of August 16 passed without any appreciable changes in position: Raevskii's men had not fallen back even one inch although they had suffered such grave losses during the night that Barclay de Tolly was forced to add General Dokhturov's fresh troops to the remnants of Raevski i's division. The battle was resumed at dawn of August 17. When the sun went down that day the positions were still unchanged , but the suburbs of Smolensk were in flames. At nightfall the French artillery continued to hurl shells into the ci ty. Every time that the cannon were si lent the three a rm y corps moved into position for a new assault. But it seemed that nothing could remove the Russians from thei r trenches. Napoleon still hoped for the possibility of a battle in the open field and he certainly would have got his wish if Barclay de Tolly had waited just a few hours more for the imminent arrival of Bagration's army. Raevsk ii's heroic men, moreover, would have stood firm , inasmuch as when they were forced to fall back they began to fight from street to street and house to house. Barclay de T olly, however, had already made his decision: he had given orders that the civilian popUlation of Smolensk was to be evacuated and its warehouses emptied. In fact, the Cos-

47

"'_~~ _ _

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48

O'- • .,.~=~ ~

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48. The invasion deepened the Russian people's love for their COUll try and their haIred lor Napoleon, who was regarded by them as a kind of Anti-Christ. 49. Smolensk fe ll alter a tremendous pounding by the French artillery which reduced the city to a heap 01 ruins.

50. "We will bring civilization to Russia," Napoleon had declared. In stead the road 0/ 'h e invasion army led only to devastation and death.

sacks had already prepared the fuses to blow up the powder magazines and the munition dumps. By the time the defenders learned about this, it was already too late for the commander-in-chief to change his mind. Barclay would not have waited even one hour longer, and he was not in the least worried about what would happen in Smolensk when the powder magazines blew up, even though he certainly knew that thousands of wounded soldiers had been billeted in the ancient city. Tn the hasty fli ght (for fear that Bagration might arrive and through his presence make a battle unavoidable) nobody gave a thought to providing for the safety of these poor wretches, almost all of whom perished. That night the city looked to the French like· an immense pyre. They wondered how it was possible for anyone to resist for so long in such an inferno. At two o'clock in the morning the powder magazines blew up and along with them a great part of the city. Smolensk already had been abandoned and only the last remaining Cossacks galloped wildly through the streets setting fire to the fuses with their lighted torches. In the older part of the city the wounded were overtaken by the flames as they lay helplessly on their straw pallets, while in the more modern part of Smolensk the civilians who had managed to remain behind barricaded themselves in the Cathedral to invoke the help of God against the advancing AntiChrist. At dawn the Grand Army had conquered Smolensk. An officer - Cesare Loge - wrote the most dramatic page of his diary: "We had as the only witnesses of our entry into the devastated city of Smolensk the smoking ruins of the houses and the corpses of our soldiers and of the enemy which lay together helter-skelter and which were being buried in com-

mon graves. The inner part of this important city presented itself to us in a particularly lugubrious and horrifying aspect: we had never seen anything like this from the the beginning of the operations. We were deeply shaken by the sight. To the music of the military band, looking proud and gloomy at once, we marched amid these ruins where lay only the charred bodies of wretched Russians, covered with blood and mud. I saw wagons full of tortured human members of all kinds which were being carted away for burial. On the threshold of houses stil l intact groups of wounded stand waiting and imploring assistance. Only French and allied soldiers were met with on the streets. They were the only living and were rummaging everywhere in the hope of finding somethi ng that may have been spared by the fire. In the Cathedral, piled upon one another, lay the dead, the dying, the healthy, men, women , and children . . . whole families covered with rags . . . they trembled as we drew near them . Unfortunately, the greater part of these poor wretches refused even the aid that was offered to them. I still see in my mind's eye, on the one hand, a dying old man who had stretched himself out on the ground , turning his back to us, and on the other, starved infants clutching their mothers' breasts which no longer contained a drop of milk." Napoleon was afraid to let his soldiers witness such a gruesome spectacle and forbade the bulk of the Grand Army to enter Smolensk. He himself visited the city in absolute silence, but then said it was a great victory. But he was not really convinced of it. His own marshals did not balk at advising that a war of this kind be brought to an end; they were used to defying death on the open battlefield and could not grasp what was happening. Murat was the most outspoken of all: we must turn back , he said, before

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51

something irreparable happens. Napoleon did not utter a word and remained wholly silent for several days. What remained of Smolensk became a n enormous hospital and the Emperor wanted personally to visit the wounded, without making a distinction between Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, or Russians. He ordered that it be explained to the terrorized survivors of the city that SmoJensk had been set to the torch by the Cossacks and not by the Grand Army, that the soldiers of the Napoleonic army were human beings and not demons unleashed from hell. To his great surprise he di scovered that such explanations fell on deaf ears.

Confusion reigned in the Russian camp: the two generals were now openly at loggerheads, which did not improve matters. Prince Bagration had been enraged to learn of the abandonment of Smolensk at the very moment when he was ready to hurl his 80,000-man army at Napoleon. Why, then , had things taken the course they had? There was only one answer in Bagration's mind : it was all part of a prearranged plan. Barclay was surrounded by inept a nd cowardly Germans, who perhaps had actually sold out to the French , and probably the Minister himself was a traitor. "A great suspicion ," wrote Bagration in those days, "was aroused in the army by the aide-de-camp Wolzogen. As is said , he is more on Napoleon's side than on ours, and nevertheless he continues to be the Minister's adviser." These were serious charges and Bagration's suspicion was unjust. What was still more serious, however, was the state of mind that provoked them. How would it be possible to expel the invader as long as

50

the army was comm anded by two generals who hated each other to this degree? On the day after the fall of Smolensk, in SI. Petersburg, the Czar convoked the crown council and asked what was to be done now. Unanimously the advisers replied that the first and foremost task was to unify the command of the two armies. Certainly even Alexander must have known since the start of the war that this decision would have to be take n; its implementation had been obstructed by the court intrigues and jealousies a nd above all by his own weakness. Placed with his back to the wall by the urgent character of the events, the Czar asked the crown councilors to propose a name, and again there was a unanimity of opinion. They all proposed the name of an old general whom Alexander cou ld not endure: Michael llarionovich Kutuzov-Golenishev.

51. At Smolellsk th e destruction wrought by the French bombardment was increased by the blowing up of the powder magazirles by the relreatinf, Russians.

The Day of Borodino: Glory and Death for All

51

· : : :' ~ : . ! ' I!

.. .!:: :

.... .. :. I

Kutuzov, the General Who Snored in the Presence of the Czar

52. Th e French finally succeeded ill getting the Russians to joill battle at Borodilio. But th ey did lIot achieve that defjnilil'e victory 011 which Napoleoll had scI all his hopes.

The first order issued to the army by the new commander-in-chief was: "Retreat!" Officers and soldiers were struck dumb with astonishment. Indeed many almost wept openly. So nothing had really changed? Nothing appeared to have, but this was not true. Kutuzov approved Barclay de Tolly's tactics, but he pointed out that they had to be improved. The retreat had to be planned, in a certain sense, so as to give it a concrete meaning. Who was this general in whom everybody seemed to have such confidence and who behaved in such an unpredictable way? At 67 , Michael Ilarionovitch Kutuzov-Golenishev had the rank of field marshal , and even though the St. Petersburg nobility a few days before had proclaimed him "chief of the capital's militia," he was somewhat unaffected by the confusion which had been generated by the war. Besides, when the invasion had begun someone had heard him mutter that Russia would be utterly beaten. Like Napoleon, he took a dim view of Russia's generals, but naturally, he did not include himself! In St. Petersburg they called him the "courtier fox" because of his ability to keep his balance adroitly amid the quicksands of the court. Some had also called him "the old satyr" because of his gallant ways with the ladies. He had first put on a uniform at the age of 16 and from the reign of Catherine the Great to that of Alexander there had been no war in which he had not taken part with honor and distinction. Now he was enjoying a well-deserved rest. According to the Czar, Kutuzov gave himself too many airs and took too sceptical a view of the world. But according to others the real reason why Alexander could not stand the sight of the old soldier was because he felt that Kutuzov judged him too severely. Perhaps he did not like the idea that Kutuzov dared

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53. A Russian Cavalry Guard officer fights with a French cavalryman. 54. KU(II ZQv also followed (lie tactic of retreat, without commiuing hi.f army to battles ill the open field; nevertheless, the Russian pressure Ofl the French army gradually increased.

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to fall asleep and snore in his presence during the meetings of the council of war. But the truth of the matter, perhaps, is that Alexander could not forgive Kutuzov for what had happened at Austerlitz. On the eve of that great battle, Kutuzov had advised the Czar to keep out of it because, in his opinion, the French army would be victorious. The Czar did not heed his advice, and at Austerlitz Napoleon had achieved one of his most brilliant victories. Alexander was very angry about this and concluded that the person really responsible for the disaster was Ku tuzov because "he had not opposed the idea enough."

-What was beyond all doubt, however, was that the old general enjoyed everybody's confidence and especially that of the soldiers and officers. On the other hand, nobody - except perhaps Bagration understood the psychology of the Russian soldier as thoroughly as did Kutuzov. A proof of the universal affection in which Kutuzov was held was provided by the public elation which foJlowed the news of his appointment. Now everything seemed possible, even beating Napoleon and hurling back the invaders. The news produced a great sensation even in French army headquarters. Napoleon asked himself what the new enemy commander-in-chief would do. On one point there seemed to be no doubt: he had been appointed to give battle, obviously. But when would he do this? And where and how? The Emperor tried to squeeze some information out of a Cossack captured by Marshal Berthier's men and even wanted to interrogate the prisoner himself. The poor wretch could not possibly have known very much about such matters, but he did say that if the battle were fought in three or four days the French would win; but if the Russ ians were given a few days' time to get orga-

nized, the war would drag on for a long time. In the last analysis the poor Cossack was an optimist. Kutuzov already knew that the battle would be lost by the Russians: in fact he had no iJlusions whatsoever on this score and actually was worried about the fact that his men might think he could work miracles. He fuJly realized that the tactics of utter retreat and the scorched-earth policy were the only ones possible : it was enough of a problem to decide with the utmost accuracy the point at which the army was to halt. This calculation depended on considerations regarding the situation of the Grand Army and on the time of the year. Kutuzov concluded that Napoleon could easily reach Moscow, but that it would be impossible for him to advance farther. So, when the invaders arrived in the capital, the Russian army would have waited for winter; the invading army would be compelled to retreat and then the Russians could easily force it to speed up its flight. Russia herself, according to the old general , would annihilate the Grand Army, if only the Russian army would lend her a helping hand. Yet before putting this pitiless but lucid plan into action Kutuzov knew, alas, that everybody was clamoring for a battle in the open field. He had been sent to the front precisely for this reason: the Czar, the nobles, St. Petersburg and Moscow, and the army itself were militantly advocating such a battle. Only an ignoramus in military matters, like the Czar, could hope that this battle would not be a defeat. The only thing to do, as Kutuzov knew all too weJl, was to find the best point at which to exchange blows with Napoleon, not in order to defeat him , but in order to emerge from the fray with an army that in some way would still be able to carry out the prearranged plan.

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Therefore Kutuzov's main concern was to dampen overconfidence. One day, when he heard a Russian officer speak too lightly about Napoleon's capabilities the old field marshal stopped to administer a severe reprimand: "Young man, by what right do you make fun of one of the greatest men that has ever lived? Take back those words, which are highly out of place, immediately." As regards the battle, there was precious little he could do about it; he knew very well that Napoleon would win it just as he knew that he could not refuse to accept it. He had given the order to retreat with a heart that was weighed down with this knowledge, even though he was aware of the pained surprise such an order would produce among the troops and in Moscow, especially in Moscow, since it was clear to everyone that Napoleon was now aiming directly for the holy city. To anyone who pointed this out to him, Kutuzov would reply with that tone that in turn permitted no reply: "My aim is to save Moscow, but after all Moscow is not yet Russia. Better to lose Moscow than the army and Russia herself." After a march of several days Kutuzov ordered the army to halt. He had reached the area around Borodino, where the Moskva River flowed placidly towards Moscow.

Napoleon was immediately informed that the Russians had called a halt and were readying their defenses, throwing up breastworks and digging trenches. Everything was clear now: the shuffle of the top army command meant that a big battle was in the offing. Then Napoleon wanted to learn something about Kutuzov personally, but accurate information was scarce. They told him that the Russian leader was famous because he was one-eyed. He asked for

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55 . The most terrible battle of the Russian campaign began witll a "feint": an assault 011 the vjl/age of Borodino.

57. -Before the battle, Napoleon ordered all intelligence report on Kutuzov , lite general who dared to defy him. He personally interrogated a Cossack war prisoner.

56. The Borodino bridge was the scene of a violent battle; the French seized possession of it but only at the price of l'ery great losses.

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58. T he slaughter at Borodillo lasted a whole day , laking the !i\'es 0/ 90,000 soldiers. Napoleon himself was deeply shaken at the sight o/the gruesome carnage. 59. Th e victo ry at BorodblO opened to the road 10 Moscow to the French. Th e ril'er on whose banks tile battle took place is th e same one that flows past Moscow, the Mosh·a. 60. In Napoleoll's time th e medical services 0/ all army were still badly organized; a great lIumber of wounded died because of the almost inevitable infection.s.

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more information and what he heard made him conclude that he was facing an adversary of considerable stature. They told him that the great Suvarov had once said about Kutuzov: "Intelligent man, intelligent. No one will ever lead him by the nose." The Emperor quickly reached the demarcation line between the two armies, dismounted from his horse, and reconnoitered the area on foot, carefully scrutinizing everything. Then he outlined the following plan to his general staff: the major onslaught would be unleashed by the French right flank , made up of the army corps of Davout, Ney, and Murat, against the Russian left flank. This section would also be pounded by the bulk of the artillery, since it contained the enemy's most strengthened fortifications: a series of breastworks laid out in the form of a fleche , that is, a two-faced parapet forming a sharp angle in front and open at the rear. As soon as the infantry effected a breakthrough the cavalry was to leap into the fray, scale the hills and then try to encircle the enemy from the rear. Beauharnais, the Viceroy of Italy, would be at the center of the army so as to constitute the pivot of the whole operation. The battle was to begin on the French right flank with a feint, consisting of an attempt to conquer the village of Borodino. Kutuzov had placed himself at the center of the two armies; he had entrusted his right flank to Bagration and his left to Barclay de Tolly. The relation between the forces was as follows: Napoleon (forced to leave garrisons along the whole route) had been left with 135,000 men and he had 587 cannon; the Russians had deployed 120,000 men and 640 artillery pieces into battle positions. Kutuzov had kept under his direct command 36,000 men, protected by an artillery unit under Raevskii ,

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6/. Shortly be/ore he died 011 the island 0/ St. Helena, Napoleon said: "/Iough, the most terrible 0/ all my ballles around Moscow ."

62. The late of the battle 0/ Borodino was decided when the Russian general Bagratioll was killed. But the Russian defeat was caused by the capture 0/ Raevskii's redoubt, near which KII(uZOV himself was stationed with his troops. 63. At Borodino bOlh French alld Russians l oug/II wi,h the utmost courage and self·sacrifice: the form er wanted the battle to be the glorious conclusion to an undertaking that had brought th em to the edges 0/ th e world; the latter hoped 01lly to ,mve their country.

which was located on high ground around which he had ordered trenches to be dug, fortified with cannon whose mouths protruded from the loopholes. Night fell and hid a sky which was already black with clouds. The soldiers, who came from every part of Europe, remained silently in their positions awaiting the order to start the battle. In one way or another this battle would put an end to this war being fought on the edges of the world . Nobody slept that night, least of all Napoleon , who spent several hours in conversation with two of his general s. A feeling of anxiety weighed heavily on everyone's heart. From the Russian camp came the strains of strange dirges with an oriental fla vor, full of homesickness ("Down there, beyond the Smalgoi hill , is the land of peace serene, there are my loved ones, there stands my house" ) which brou ght tears to the eyes of thousands of men worn out with fatigue and hunger, forced to engage in an adventure the reason for which they could not at an fathom. Now and then Napoleon looked out from his tent and gazed in the direction of the Russian camp. Even though he knew that the Russians had erected many fortifications, even though he knew that Kutuzov's soldiers had been blessed during the day by the high clergy in ceremonial vestments with the most venerated icons of Holy Russia, he was afraid that the battle might again be postponed at the last moment. At five o'clock in the morning Marshal Ney dispatched a messenger to ask for permission to begin. Napoleon had his proclamation sent to the troops: ". . . so that of each one of you it can be said: He was at the great battle under the walls of Moscow." Following the proclamation thousands of soldiers numbed by the rain that had fallen during the night found the strength to shout: "Long live the Em-

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peror! " in a medley of languages. Napoleon reached the heights of a hill over which units of the Old and the Young Guard were spread out. When the sun gilded the horizon behind the Russians and the battle began, he drew an immense sigh of relief. "At last we have them," he said. "Forward march! We will open the gates of Moscow!" The battle immediately assumed an extremely violent character. The Russian light infantrymen were driven out of Borodino but recaptured it a little later, while on the opposite flank a struggle raged on the outskirts of another village, Semyonovskoe, and later around the formidable and extremely solid Heche fortifications prepared by Bagration. By mid-morning the great battle had already produced thousands of dead without effecting any appreciable changes in the positions of the two armies. Napoleon dispatched orders to Eugene de Beauharnais to hurl his forces resolutely against the Russian troops marshaled in the center and commanded personally by Kutuzov and protected by Raevskii's artillery ; the Emperor's stepson obeyed instantly and his soldiers inflicted wholesale slaughter on the enemy detachments. Bagration also reckoned that the moment had come to do something to relieve the pressure of Davout's and Ney's continuous attacks against his fortifications , so he ordered an attack with drawn bayonets. Davout was the first to realize what was afoot and to organize a counterattack. Running towards each other without firing in order not to break their momentum, Russian and French soldiers fell upon each other in violent combat, but once again Bagration tricked the enemy by suddenly disengaging his men. The French were left in an exposed position and the Russian artillery literally mowed them down . But the French troops kept rush-

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64. Murat's cavalry went into action at the end 0/ the day, when the Russians were already ill flight. 65. Napoleoll was the victor 0/ the day 0/ Borodino: neller/he/ess with this battle the Russians showed Europe that the French army could be resisted.

ing forward in the face of this murderous fire, winning even Bagration's admiration as from a distance he saw these poor wretches bravely rush into the jaws of death. Again it was the artillery's turn, while at the central point the Italians under Viceroy Eugene finally succeeded in storming the elevated redoubt after a series of futile assaults. Nevertheless the Russian lines, as they had been drawn for battle, seemed still to be pretty solid. A crucial event occurred at eleven in the morning: Bagration was struck by a flying splinter in the leg, tearing it apart just under the knee. The general tried to remain in the saddle at the head of his men; he was one who knew his calling well and he had a feeling that the French were undergoing a difficult moment. If the Russian lines could hold out just a little longer against these savage onslaug!l.ts, then perhaps all would not be lost. The French undoubtedly were at the end of their rope. Unfortunately, the blood was flowing profusely from his gaping wound. Suddenly Bagration's face - as begrimed as the faces of his soldiers by the smoke of battle - turned deathly white. The Soviet historian Eugene Tarle writes: "For a while he tried to hide the wound from his men in order not to demoralize them, but the blood poured out of the wound without let-up; slowly, stoically, without a murmur he slipped down from his horse. His aides managed to grab him just in time as he was about to keel over. They laid him gently on the ground and then carried him to a sheltered spot. What he feared, the thing for which he had endured seconds of an excruciating pain without batting an eyelash, happened." Here Tarle quotes the words of an eyewitness: "In a flash word spread of his death , and it was impossible to prevent the panic which

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broke out among the troops . . . only one feeling gripped everyone: despair. Towards noon , when Bagration was removed from the field, the second army - that is to say, the left wing which was under his command - was in the grip of such a state of mind that several detachments could not be reorganized even beyond the range of fire."

The French took advantage of the foe's misfortune. Bagration had been right when he had surmised that the enemy was in great trouble. At that moment Napoleon had already heard several pleas from his generals that his Guard, lined up in elegant parade order behind Napoleon watching the carnage, be hurled into the fray. But the Emperor turned a deaf ear. Down below, at his feet , thousands of men had been vainly fighting for several hours without achieving any concrete results and his marshals had vainly dispatched messages to the Emperor asking for help; the intervention of the Guard would have been enough to decide the outcome of the battle. Napoleon had refused such a request even from Count Rapp, who had been brought before him, covered with blood. Rapp had led the faltering French in a bayonet attack when he saw General Com pans fall at the head of his division, but he himself was soon struck by a bullet. When they moved him back to the rear Rapp asked to be brought before the Emperor. "You've been wounded again!" Napoleon cried. "Always, Sire. You know that is my habit." It was the twenty-seventh time that he had been wounded in battle. Napoleon stood up. Rapp's body must have been completely covered with battle scars.

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"What's going on up there?" he asked. "They're performing miracles, Sire. But the Guard is needed to end it once and for all." Napoleon made a gesture of refusal. "No," he said, "I don' t want them cut to pieces' We must win without the Guard. " After Rapp was taken away the Emperor paced up 'and down for a while, nervou sly, the n he again sat down in the folding small easy chair which was part of his campaign equipment. He was not feeling well, feeling prostrated by a cold and other ailments, but he had preserved his lucidity of mind. Evidently he also knew that the Guard would have definitely settled the battle in favor of the French , but he did not want to run any risks. As long as he had the Young and the Old Guard he could tell himself and others that he still had an army with him, indeed the best one in the world. Without Bagration the Russia n left wing did not resist for long, Finally Murat's cavalry opcned a way lor itse lf toward the heights and the French immediately hauled their artillery to th e hillt op . Raevskii's redoubt was forced to surrender in the early afternoon , despite an attempt by General Pl atov to come to his rescue by bringing up Cossacks who attacked the Grand Army from the rear. As Eugene succeeded in smashing his way through the central sec tor and holding it , Davout, Ney, and Murat again asked Napoleon to send the Guard into action: the enemy was retreating and was trying to disengage him self in o rder to avoid a complete defeat. Fresh troops were needed to prevent the foe from crossing the Moskva Ri ver. But Napoleon continued to reply with a curt "No!" The rain which began to fall at twilight mercifull y put an end to the carnage: the Russians had left at

66. Th e o utcome of the day of Borodino remailled undecided for a long time.

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67. Napoleoll was reluctan t to hurl tlie Old Guard, lEis last if/tact format ion, i1lto the fray. 68. At Borodillo, Napoleoll d id 1I0t seem to measure up to !tis fame and reputation. 69. The "medics" succor the wounded at Borodino.

least 58,000 men on the pla in of Borodino - that was about half thei r army. Tolstoy describes the scene as follows: "Some tens of th ousands of men lay sacrificed in various postures and uniforms on the field s a nd meadows belonging to the Davidov family and the C rown serfs, on the field s and meadows where for 69

hundreds of years the peasa nts of Borodino, Gorky, Shevard ino, and Semyonovskoe had harvested their crops and grazed their cattle. At the ambulance stations the grass and earth were soaked with blood for two acres around . Crowds of men, wou nded and un wo unded , of va rious arms, with fever-stricken

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faces, dragged themselves, on one side back to Mozhaisk, on the other to Valuev." Napoleon decided to mount his horse for the first time that day. His tired face revealed signs of great strain and suffering. When it was reported to him that only 700 prisoners had been taken , the Emperor withdrew into a stubborn silence. Everybody quickly understood the significance of such a report: it was obviou s that these Russians preferred to die rather than fall into the hands of the invader and of the AntiChrist. Never before had Napoleon seen any people - except, perhaps, the Spaniards - fight so doggedly in defense of their country. That night Kutuzov was aware that he had suffered a cruel defeat, but Napoleon was equally aware of the fact that he had not obtained that definitive victory of which he had been dreaming so long. The 90,000 dead of Borodino had opened the road to Moscow to the French. But nothing had really changed. The old Russian field marshal listened to the reports and set the minds of his generals at ease, just as the Emperor hailed the great victory in exalted terms and ostentatiou sly paraded before his marshals his utter confidence in the way things were going. Both knew that the game was still open. And even Napoleon, although he was convinced that his had been a Pyrrhic victory, maintained that he still had something to say: one more battle like this and the Russian army would be no more. Finally, Moscow beckoned to the survivors of the battle of Borodino: the Czar would be overthrown if the city fell. Napoleon was deluding himself, because he was measuring the stability of Alexander's throne by his own standard : he knew that Europe and Paris would not have forgiven Napoleon , not only for the loss of Paris, but even for a single defeat. Kutuzov, on the

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other hand , who had a profound knowledge of his own people, had no worries at all on this score. The Russians would have wept and gritted their teeth , but the fall of Moscow would only spur them to fight against the invader with redoubled fury. Napoleon . therefore, could even· conquer Moscow. Tt would serve as an alluring trap in which to wait for the coming of winter. The plan was too bold for it to be understood by everybody, and above all by the Muscovites. But Kutuzov was a stubborn old man who knew what he wanted, and nothing and nobody could have stopped him. 70. Moscow, the ancient capita l 0/ Ho ly I?lissia. Napo/e oll hoped tllal the cOl/quest o/the city would shake til e Czar's throne. 71. Marshal Ney , olle 0/ the heroes 0/ the Russian campaign. 72. l oacllim Murat: his ca valry often sho wed it.~e l/ to be superior to [he more famous Co .\'sack em ·alry. 72

Moscow: The Holy City in the Hands of the Anti-Christ

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An Ocean of Fire Around the Kremlin

73. Napoleon before Moscow. Despite the way the war was going, the Emperor experienced all the pride of a conqueror of a precious prize before the gates 0/ this fabulous city.

Kutuzov gathered the general staff around the table of a peasant's izba, or hut. Then he asked the generals to express their opinions on the situation: should they defend Moscow or abandon the city to its fate? Silently the old field marshal listened to the passionate utterances of his generals, all of which boiled down to the indignant question: "How could a Russian give up the holy city without a fight?" After the last general was heard, KutuZQv rose. Then, fixing his gaze stubbornly on the dirt floor, he slowly pronounced his verdict: "Gentlemen, by virtue of the authority invested in me by my Emperor and by my country, I order the army to retreat." A little later he said that the army would pass through Moscow without stopping there and that it would dig in farther to the east of the city. The first units set out on the march during the night and on the next morning the field marshal himself arrived before the gates of the ancient capital. The decision to abandon Moscow to the invader produced a panic in the city, and a feeling of great sorrow among the survivors of the battle of Borodino. The Muscovites poured in droves out of the eastern exits of the city in order to find a safe haven elsewhere. KutuZQv was not unaware of the state of mind of those around him, but he knew there was no other way out: Moscow simply had to be sacrificed because the "holy city" was the indispensable bait which Napoleon would find irresistible. He could not be denied this greatly coveted prize if he was to be made to fall into the trap that was about to close around him. The field marshal wheeled his horse on the outskirts of Moscow and turned to his entourage of officers. He asked whether anyone of them could guide him through the city, up to the Yautskii bridge, at a swift

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74. Two Russians pray be/ore all icoll for the salvation oj Russia. 75. The Russians abandoned M oscow a fe w hours before the arrival 0/ the French. Th e latter up to the end had hoped that Kutuzov would again tempt fate O il the open battlefield. 76. Napoleon entered Moscow orle day later than the Grand Arm)'. He was deeply disappointed because no Russian delegation came forward to meet him.

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gallop so that he could escape recognition. A very young officer, Prince Galitzin, stepped forward to volunteer his escort services. The ride through Moscow went well, but on the bridge, crowded with civilians and soldiers, Kutuzov was recognized by the Governor General of Moscow, Count Rostopchin. The latter was eager to talk, but KutuZQv brusquely interrupted him with the order to have the bridge cleared immediately so that the soldiers could pass over it.

At ten o'clock in the morning Napoleon rode to the top of Poklonny Hill, which in Russian means the " mount of greetings," and gazed with a rapt expression at Russia's fabulous holy city - the city that symbolized. for him the beginning of the long road to that mysterious Asia in which he aimed to follow in the tracks of Alexander the Great. Moscow was magnificent seen from that height "with her river, her gardens, and her churches . . . her cupolas twinkling like stars in the sunlight," as Tolstoy was to write. The Emperor drew a deep sigh and murmured. "At last!" He was sure that the capture of Moscow would cause the Czar to surrender: the most terrible and grueling campaign into which he had ever ventured was about to be crowned with a great victory . But he suffered his first disappointment when they told him that no deputation of Muscovites had been sent to greet the conqueror. Now he was even reluctant to enter the city and limited himself to appointing Marshal Edouard Adolphe Mortier, Duke of Treviso, its Governor General: "Defend Moscow against friend and foe alike," he told him. "Above all, no looting! You will answer for it with your head! " But the soldiers had already begun to loot this extraor-

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dinary metropolis where magnificent and deserted mansions had been left intact and exposed to their cupidity, extreme poverty, and hunger. French citizens who had been residents of Moscow before the war were the first to spread the news about the preparations that had been made to set the city afire. The news seemed hard to believe, but that very night several fires broke out in various parts of the city: the wooden houses, enveloped in sudden huge searing flames , were razed to the ground in a matter of minutes. Just before dawn Napoleon went to visit the Kremlin. Lost in thought, he passed through the streets reddened in the glare of the flames. Inside the immense fortress , Napoleon wandered from one room to the other and stopped at length before the throne of Ivan the Great. Then he entered the apartments of the Czars where he sat down at a table and wrote a letter to Alexander. A senior Russian officer, who had been found convalescing in a hospital, was charged with the mission of delivering it to the Czar. Mortier had immediately realized that nothing could save Moscow from total destruction , but he continued day after day to struggle against the conflagration and to have incendiaries or suspected incendiaries summarily shot. For a long, long time this monstrous disaster in which inestimable treasures were lost forever was to be a favorite and intriguing' subject for discussion among historians. Everything seems to indicate that the .greatest responsibility for this rested upon Count Rostopchin , Moscow's Governor General. The retreating Russians burned mansions, houses, hovels, factories , entire neighborhoods, ammunition depots, and storehouses : a powder magazine blew up, adding to the din and destruction. Only the Kremlin seemed to be an island in the midst

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78. The conflagration if, Moscow lasted many days. The Frellch executed several Russians suspected 0/ IIm ring started the fire 0/ September 8. 79. Napoleon watched Moscow bum from a Kremlin window. The great Frel/ch writer Stem/hal wrote that ill those days he had seen Moscow illuminated "by the most beautiful conf/agratio1l in the world."

of a sea of flames , even though attempts were regularly made also to put this historic residence of the Czars to the torch. The most terrible night of all was that of September 16, when the wild flames licked at the Kremlin from all sides and threatened to reach the ammunition depot of a French artillery unit stationed under Napoleon's very window, along with the powder magazine that the Russians had left behind. When the arsenal tower was enveloped in flames, Mortier said that it was necessary to transport Napoleon to safer quarters. Napoleon refused to budge, but at dawn the situation became precarious. Viceroy Eugene appeared in the Emperor's apartments and on bended knee implored Napoleon to find a safer haven. Napoleon stopped being obstinate and decided to clear out of the enormous rooms, which were already filling with smoke, taking with him Murat, Berthier, and of course, Eugene. Segur was also present. This is how he described this episode in his memoirs: "Finally master of the palace of the Czars, Napoleon stubbornly refused to give up his conquest, even to the flames. Suddenly the cry, 'The Kremlin's on fire!' ran from mouth to mouth , rudely shaking us out of the contemplative stupor into which we had fallen. The Emperor went out to make a rapid survey of the danger. Fire had twice been detected in the building in which he was standing, and had been put out on both occasions. Our troops had found a Russian police officer in the building, and he was hauled before Napoleon for questioning. It turned out that this Russian was the incendiary and that he had carried out orders issued by his superior. Seemingly, everything had been earmarked for destruction, even the ancient and sacred Kremlin!

"The Emperor made a gesture at once expressing his rage and contempt, and the culprit was led to the courtyard where the angry grenadiers bayonnetted him to death. "This incident induced Napoleon to make up hi s mind on the spot. He hurried down the northern staircase, made famous by the slaughter of the Stt'eltsy, and ordered his aides to escort him out of the city to the imperial palace of Petrovskii , about a league away on the road to St. Petersburg. But we were besieged by an ocean of fire which blocked every exit from the citadel, and frustrated our first attempts to escape. After some searching, we discovered a sec ret door among the rocks on the side which opened on the Moskva River, and it was through this narrow passage that Napoleon, his officers, and his guard managed to escape from the Kremlin. But what had they gained thereby? Now they were actually closer than before to the fire , and they could neither retrace their steps nor remain where they were: How were they to go forward, how were they to make their way through that sea of fire? Even those who knew their way around the city, deafened by the din of the tempest and blinded by falling ashes, could no longer orient themselves since the smoke-filled and debrisridden streets had become unrecognizable. "Yet there was no time for delay and deliberation. The roaring of the flames around us became louder by the minute. Only one way was open' It was a narrow, winding street the length of which was already ablaze and it seemed more like an entrance to, rather than an exit from, that inferno. The Emperor resolutely rushed forward into the dangerous passage and kept going amid the roar and crackle of the flames, the din of collapsi ng floors and ceilings, faIling, blazing beam s, and fiery sheets of iron roofing.

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80. Marshal Morrier, to whom Napoleon had entrusted Moscow, tried with all meatlS at his disposal 10 save the city from the flames.

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8/ . According /0 Joseph de Maistre, "the flames of Moscow burned up Napoleon's fortune." 82. Ros/opchill , the Governor G eneral of Moscow, is beJiel'ed to have ordered that the city be put 10 the torch as soon as Ihe French sel foot if! it. The French were ullable ot put out the fires despite all their desperate allempts.

Heaps of rubble blocked the path: the flames which were noisily eating away at the buildings among which we were gi ngerly making our way rose above the rooftops where the lashing winds bent them backwards so that they curled over our heads. We were walking on a carpet of fire, under a sky of fire , and between two walls of fire. The heat burned our eyes which we had to keep open and alert to every danger. The all-consuming air, the smouldering ashes and the individual tongues of leaping flames turned our breathing into a series of short, dry, painful gasps. and we were almost suffocated by the smoke. Our hands were burned when we tried to shield our fa ces from the intolerable heat and tried to brush away the embers that settled on our clothing, burning it through. " In such a dangerous situation, when it seemed that the only way to safety lay in deliberate speed, our guide paused, uncertain and lost in thought. Probably our adventurous existence would have come to an end then and there, if some soldiers from the first corps, who chanced to be looting among the ruins, had not recognized the Emperor amid this vortex of flames. They ran to him and led him to the smoking rubble of a quarter that had been reduced to a pile of ashes that very morning. "It was here that we ran into Prince Eckmuehl, that marshal who, though wounded at the Moskva, had had himself carried back into the conflagration in order to rescue Napoleon or to perish with him amid the flames. He threw himself into his arms in a transport of joy. Napoleon received him with utmost kindness, but wholly preserved that composure which never forsook him in moments of peril." Peter the Great's palace stood in the open countryside, in the middle of a huge park. It was evening

when the Emperor arrived there; his heart was heavy . For what was happening meant only one thing: it was not at all about to end; on the contrary, it would be continued to the point of desperation. Segur gives us a measure of this state of mind when he reports that for the first time Napoleon was uncertain as to what to do. This man who had spent his whole life giving order after order, this man who had always had clear and distinct ideas, now began to confer with others, to ask advice. At first he expressed the intention to march on St. Petersburg: if the conquest of Moscow had not been enough to bring the Russians to their knees, he would force them to surrender by capturing the capital. But it was pointed out to him that the Grand Army was no longer in a condition to undertake an expedition of this kind. Someone proposed a withdrawal to Smolensk in order to spend the winter there while awaiting reinforcements and the return of spring, but Napoleon rejected the proposal. After all, was he not still waiting for an answer to the letter he had sent to Alexander? As soon as the Czar learned that he, Napoleon, was occupying Moscow and that Moscow had been reduced to a heap of ruins because the Russians themselves had lost their heads, he certainly would conclude that the war was lost. When Napoleon decided to return to the Kremlin , practically nothing of the holy city still remained . Strangely enough, that disastrous disarray resembled that of his own scattered, famished army, threatened by Russian deserters. The man who had intended to bring to this city the light of justice a nd the freedoms of the new France, the man who had ordered Mortier to prevent looting, now realized that the ca rds he held in his hands had cha nged in a few days. The various units were quarreling over their respective

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83. This anti-Napo leon cartoon shows clearly that the psychological effects of th e gigan tic conflagration did not escape contemporaries: the burning was attributed to th e French and aroused universal indignation. 84. Kutuzov's soldiers could clearly see Moscow burning, and the awesome spectacle deepened th eir hatred of the invader.

prerogatives and priorities in the matter of looting the mansions and houses that had remained intact: even the Old Guard, the pride of his army, was now involved in this shameful conduct. He ordered that the moujiks be lured with money to bring their produce to Moscow, but they were killed or robbed by the soldiers and soon they could no longer be enticed to come to the city. As a result the patrols had to go farther and farther from Moscow, and even farther afield in the countryside, in order to find provisions for the men and fodder for the horses. But these sorties soon became very dangerous and useless: the men found nothing to confiscate and often they had to fight skirmishes with partisan hordes which had been formed by the m oujiks. Guerrilla warfare, which for years had been bleeding white the French armies in Spain, now loomed as a growing threat in Russia too. Napoleon received only scanty intelligence about the enemy army : Kutuzov had brought his armies to the old Kaluga road, and Murat's cavalry had vainly tried to provoke them into a fight. In fact, the aged field marshal had forced his men to halt. The camp was not far from Moscow. Kutuzov wanted every soldier to see the sky over the horizon which had been reddened by the monstrous funeral pyre which Moscow had become so that their hearts would seethe with a desire for revenge . Meanwhile, fresh troops were being recruited throughout Russia. As soon as the autumn arrived, the French would be fo rced to make a decision. In fact , September had come and gone. On October 3, in an attempt to ease the situation in some way, the Emperor announced that he had drawn up a plan for the capture of St. Petersburg. He was furious because he had received no reply from Alexander,

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and wanted revenge. But the good sense of the marshals, who were deeply discouraged over the prospect of a march on the capital, prevailed. The Grand Army was in no position to accomplish an undertaking of this kind, even if it were buoyed by the hope of reinforcements sent by Macdonald. After a long parley, the Emperor was persuaded to give up the idea, and limited himself to sending an ambassador to the Czar to have arrangements made for peace talks: Napoleon was at the end of his rope, but he did not want to admit it either to himself or to others. All he did now was to express astonishment over the fact that the fall of Moscow had not shaken Alexander's throne and had not induced the Russians to seek peace. A Frenchman who knew the Ru ssians best, the former ambassador Marquis Louis de Caulaincourt, tried to explain the reasons for this seemingly strange behavior to him, but Napoleon rejected all his reasonings (Caulaincourt, incidentally was the man whom he had chosen for his peace mission to St. Petersburg). The ambassador then started all over again in an attempt to convince him of how things really stood: the Russians knew that the worst was over and that winter was on the way. They would never agree to make peace at this time. The Czar, even if nobody had informed him, must certainly know that the Grand Army was in a terrible predi cament. Napoleon was not used to listening to objections, so he abruptly broke off the conversation. If Caulaincourt did not feel like undertaking the mission, he had already found another man who was willing to leave for St. Petersburg, Jacques Law, the Marquis of Lauriston. He had been a classmate of Napoleon's and was a skillful diplomat and politician. So Napoleon commissioned him to take the message to the

83

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85. Napoleon's sword commemorating Austerlitz; the hilt was 01 chased silver with medallions and lallrelleaves.

85

86. The blade 01 the sword thatl\'apoleorl used at Marengo is decorated with designs in enamel against a gold background; the sheath and tassels are 01 leather. 87. E)'e fl rhe Kremlin was;n danger of being destroyed by the conflag ration: al any rate, the Russians tried to blow il up.

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Czar. As Lauriston was taking his leave of Napoleon just before setting out for the Russian lines to obtain a safe conduct from Kutuzov, Napoleon said to him: "I want peace, I must have peace! I want it absolutely. Only preserve our honor!" Caulaincourt was right: the mission was doomed to fail. Lauriston himself realized this the moment he reached the enemy lines on October 5. Before he could have a private audience with Kutuzov he had to cool his heels for a very long time and he was even forced to wait for the outcome of a preliminary meeting between the Russian chief of staff, Bennigsen, and Murat. And after all this long period of waiting, Kutuzov finally sent for him and told him that nobody could issue him a safe-conduct to SI. Petersburg because nobody, including himself, was empowered to do so! Lauriston was flabbergasted, but Kutuzov and his generals came up with a conciliatory proposal in order to soften the blow: why not deliver Napoleon's message to the Czar's aide-de-camp, Volkonsky, who would immediately gallop off with it to SI. Petersburg? Lauriston was told that Murat himself had approved the idea; indeed he had even favorably welcomed the proposal of an armistice pending recei pt of a reply from the Czar. When Napoleon was informed of this, he approved; yet something told him that there was much about the counter-overtures of the Russians that had a false ring. For example, the armistice that had been agreed upon was rather unusual: it applied only to the central section of the two deployed armies, namely, that sector in which the two armies faced each other. The armistice did not apply to the flanks, where the figh t would go on. But certainly Murat must have known what he was doing and his letters had a tranquilizing

78

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effect. It would appear that nobody among the French entertained the least suspicion that the Russians were now reorganizing their ranks and needed several days of calm before the advent of winter. Philippe de Segur confirms this and admits that while on the one hand the guerrilla warfare continued to take deadly toll of the French cavalry, on the other the Russians were busily whipping their disorganized armies into shape: "All the recruits arrived at the collection centers despite the long treks that they were forced to make; there was no need, as in other years, to defer the call to arms until the snow, by obstructing all the roads except the main thoroughfares, made desertions impossible. All responded to the national call to arms, indeed all Russia rose to her feet. It was said that mothers had wept with joy

upon hearing that their sons had been enlisted and they themselves ran to announce the glorious news and they themselves led them to see them decorated with the sign of the crusaders and to hear them shout, 'God wills it!' " In Moscow, Napoleon was still waltmg for Czar Alexander's answer, the answer that would enable him to draw up a peace treaty and to abandon the holy city. A decision had to be taken now, in one way or another. For this reason he issued orders for the seizure of war booty. He had the churches of the Kremlin stripped of everything which could serve as a trophy for the Grand Army, and even had the huge cross that stood above the throne of [van the Great removed, that it might be placed atop the dome of the

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lnvalides in Paris. But still there was no answer from Alexander. October was now drawing perilously near to its end, and the first cold wave had arrived. Napoleon whiled the time away by concerning himself with matters of trifling importance, such as discussing the by-laws of the ComMie Fram;aise, without coming to a decision which with each passing day became harder and harder to make. As of October 14, however, he had already given an order to Berthier: no unit moving towards Moscow was to go beyond Smolensk in the direction of Moscow. Also, the removal of the wounded began. Napoleon was getting ready to abandon the city, even if it still seemed as though he had not decided upon a course of action: whether he would wait until the end of winter in Smolensk, or whether he would march forthwith on SI. Petersburg, or whether he would return to Paris. The first initiative of an all-determining character came from the Russians: on October 18, they launched a full-scale attack on Murat's front line at Tarutino. The sudden attack had inflicted a catastrophic reverse on the flamboyant King of Naples, who had been taken in and lulled into a false sense of security by the charm and affability of the Russian commanders during the "armistice." The Russian chief of staff asked Kutuzov whether he should continue the attack further. The field marshal replied that this was hardly necessary: the French would get the message anyway. And Napoleon, in fact, immediately understood that this was a warning: the Russians had reorganized their army and were preparing a counter-offensive. A safe haven for the Grand Army had to be found before the arrival of winter. So the 110,000 survivors of the Grand Army received the order to vacate the holy city.

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88. The Russians caught the French by surprise at TarUlino, 011 the outskirts of Moscow: it was the signal 'hat the mOlllellt had arrived /0 expel the invader. Napoleoll heard the gunfire while he was passing some cavalry units in review. 89. In Moscow, whatever had not been destroyed by the fire fell prey to the fury of the soldiery and went to

enrich the stores of booty collected in the course of the great sacking

0/ the city. 89

Russia Annihilates the Grand Army

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The Last Victory, the Slaughter at the Berezina

90. Th e retreat of the Grand Army constituted tile most tragic page of the Russian campaign: th e Prench army was never to recover from the frightful losses suffered on the frozen steppes.

The Grand Army began its exodus from Moscow on October 19 during a bitter cold night. Tn the light of the moon, companies, regiments, divisions, whole

army corps marched through the city's streets, now unrecognizable, to the roll of drums, while the bands played the most martial music in the imperial repertoire. Nobody seemed to think that this was a retreat, and even Napoleon probably was trying to convince himself when, upon putting the spurs to his horse, he was heard to murmur: "Forward to Kaluga and woe to those who cross my path! " Tn general it was considered that the Grand Army was marching grimly against its foe, which, only the day before, at Tarutino, had inflicted a shattering defeat on the King of Naples. If there had been no battle, the French army would have moved to a position more suitable for spending the winter, where it would have been easier to rest and more convenient to wait for provisions and reinforcements for the new spring offensive. Officially the Emperor asserted that Russia already had been defeated and that only her oriental fata lism prevented her from accepting offers of peace. Napoleon by now must have been convi nced that the only thing to do was to escape the trap into which he had fallen. He was aware that he had lost too much time in Moscow, in the futile expectation that the Czar would answer his messages, which , in the last analysis, had actually produced a wholly opposite effect: the Russians had interpreted them as a sign that Napoleon's army was on the verge of surrender. In reality there was nothing more for the army to do in Moscow, and this had been the case for a long time. The Emperor must have considered for a long time the possibility of inciting the Russian populace against the Czar and the nobility by abolishing serf-

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91. The Grand Army left Moscow to the blare of trumpets and the roll of drums, but ill truth the French army was ,IOwa defeated military body. 92. A cannoll of Naroleon's army. In their retreat rhe French left all their booty behind, and a great part of their war materiel, including their murderous artillery.

92

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93. Napoleon himself ran a great risk during the war: a Cossack troop succeeded jn pushing within a lew yards of him but it was repulsed before the Emperor could be recognized.

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dom. But he had been forced to thrust aside this temptation in order not to prejudice the possibility of negotiations with Alexa nder. Thus precious time had been frittered away, while the supplies inc reasi ngly dwindled, while it was no longer possible even to find forage for the horses in the countryside around Moscow. Everyt hing had been destroyed and the m oltjiks had organizcd themselves into partisan bands who massacred Frenchmen who ventured to leave the city. The reversal at Tarutino had not been irreparable. but it had definitely made clear why Field Marshal Kutuzov had not wanted to go too far away from Moscow: the Ru ssian s had c nlisted new conscripts; they had rcorganized and were read y to go on the offensive. As previously stated. the Emperor's decis ion to leave had been made a few days bcfore Tarutino. Hc had ordercd that the convoys from Smolensk to M oscow bc interrupted ; he had begun the removal of the wounded; he had dispatched commissariat personnel to prepare for the army's arrival in Smolen sk. ( Among these there was a Frenchman who was to inscribe his name on the histo ry of European cu lture, Hcnri Beyle, known under the pseud onym of Stendhal.) But there is no doubt th at the unforesee n clash at Tarutino had delivered the final blow to Napoleon's lingering hopes. As soon as news of the imminent departure sprcad, generals and soldi ers hastencd to load on the wagons the booty thcy had collected during the looting. And whcn thc army began its march , it was joined by all the foreign residents in Moscow who had remained behind to wait for the French when the Russians had evacuated the city, and who now were afraid of reprisa ls. Thu s a thron g of c ivilians, me n, women and

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94. Napo leon was careful to see that news of th e ex /ellt of tile disaster did not trickle back 10 Europe: he was very much aware how insecure was the cro wII which Ire had ollly recently acquired.

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95. Kutu zov lIever con tinued his attacks to the limit: he merely waited fo r tile ;n vader.~ to leave , without all excessive expenditure of human lives.

children, with their baggage also had to be taken along on that infinitely difficult journey. Only 8,000 men now remained in Moscow under the command of Marshal Mortier; their mission was to blow up the Kremlin and all other installations of any military importance. After the accomplishment of their mission they were supposed to catch up with the army in four days, on the ancient road to Kaluga.

That night the march was halted on the edge of the city in order to organize the formation of the endless, lumbering column. This was by no means an easy job, even though efficiency was still the strong point of the Napoleonic military machine. Nevertheless by noon it was possible to resume the march. Philippe de Segur described the scene in his memoirs as follows : "One could see in the three or four columns of interminable length, a jumble, a confusion of carriages, wagons, gaudy coaches, and every kind of cart imaginable. Here were trophies of Russian , Turkish, and Persian banners and the gigantic cross of Ivan the Great, there long-bearded Russia n peasants who were driving or carrying out booty, of which they formed a part. Others were wheeling barrows loaded with everything that they had been able to pile on them. These senseless creatures were blissfully unaware of the fact that they would not even be able to survive up to the end of the first day! Their cupidity blinded them to the eight thousand leagues and the many battles that loomed ahead. "Conspicuous in that mass trailing the army's rear were crowds of men of all nations, without uniforms or weapons, and lackeys swearing in a medley of tongues and urging on ponies, harnessed to fancy carriages with rope, by dint of threats and blows."

(These were carriages loaded with provIsIons and booty that had been rescued from the fire ; in them also rode French women with their children. Once upon a time they had been happy residents of Moscow, now they were fleeing the hatred of the Russians which had been unleashed against them by the invasion . The army was their only salvation.) "Russian girls, voluntary captives, also brought up the rear. It seemed as though one were watching a caravan, a nomadic people, even one of those armies of ancient times ret urning from some great exploit of destruction laden with spoils a nd slaves . It was hard to understand how the head of that column could drag along and sustain such a mass of vehicles and "baggage over such an infinitely long stretch of road. "

The Emperor - " according to the Soviet historian Tarle - was certainly not happy over this state of affairs. But he could not make up his mind to order his generals and his soldiers to give up their booty which , after all, he had promised them. On the other hand , Napoleon fully realized that very soon his army would have to face even more serious difficulties. In the last analysis only two persons had clear ideas: Napoleon and Kutuzov. Not only did each know what he had to do, but also what the other would do. Napoleon had no other alternative save retreat, and everything depended on the way it would be brought to a conclusion. In practice, it boiled down to a question of avoiding ambushes, entrapment in a field battle, and a nything else that would now have meant only a useless squandering of energy and materials. For Kutuzov, who was quite aware of Napoleon's state of mind , a battle was equally useless. It might destroy the invader, but it would also cost the

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Russians an exorbitant price. In the field marshal's view the Russians should be content with the fact that the invaders were leaving without any delay. The most important thing was to prevent Napoleon from retreating in good order; the Grand Army was to be weakened by a consta nt harassment which would make it impossible to realize the possible project of a new offensive in the spring or summer. Those who did not understand the grand plans of their respective commanders were the sowers of the same discontent in both general staffs. Kutuzov especially had to face some grueling days under the pressure of the Czar's appeals and the insinuations of hostile generals. He was even accused of cowardice, as had happened on the day of Tarutino, when he opposed pushing the attack against Murat further , and as was to happen in the days immediately following, for example, at Malo-Yaroslavets. On the afternoon of October 19, while the domes of the Kremlin were etched against the now distant horizon, the men of the Grand Army heard the noise of the first explosions set by Mortier's mines. The destruction of Moscow had been prepared with meticulous precision and it continued for four days amid tremendous blasts and horrifying ruins. When the last units of the rear guard had left the holy city the Cossacks discovered that, fortunately, not all the charges had exploded , because the rain wh ich had fallen during those days had extinguished the fuses.

Napoleon had spent a good deal of his last days in the Kremlin in front of the map of Russia, looking for the best road to take for the way back. Now Kutuzov's plan was clear and it was absolutely necessary to ward off its dangers. If Napoleon was to

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insure the possibility of saving his army, the enemy had to lose the tracks of the retreat. This could be done only if his army was swallowed up by the steppes. And he hoped to effect the disappearing act by ordering the Grand Army to take the road to Kaluga. At a certain point, in fact, the army was to make a right turn and then proceed in a northwesterly direction, taking the road to Smolensk. The Russians, according to this plan, would be losing precious time in an effort to pick up traces of the retreating invaders, which would give the Grand Army time to arrive at Smolensk, where it would find rest, reinforcements, provisions, and shelter against the cold. One fact, however, had escaped the Emperor: the Russian army had its storehouses on the Kaluga road. Hence it was inevitable that the march of the French would alert the enemy: Napoleon had a need of food for his troops that could no longer be put off. Kutuzov received intelligence reports confirming the fact that Napoleon was marching towards his supply center at eleven o'clock on the evening of October 12 ; immediately he ordered General Dokhturov to intercept the French. The clash took place at MaloYaroslavets, barely seventeen miles from the bulk of the Russian army. The Italians who made up the fourth army corps, commanded by Viceroy Eugene, distinguished themselves in the action . The battle was fiercely fought: during the day the city passed eight times from the Russians to the Italians in a bloody duel to the death. Napoleon's orders to Eugene called for the position to be held at any cost, in order to enable the Grand Army to pass behind Malo-Yaroslavets and thus effect the turn in a northwesterly direction towards Smolensk. A good deal of the French plan had been

96. 011 the way back, the Gralld A rmy crossed the plaill of Borodblo ill .~i1ellce; traces of the frightful carnage were sIilI visible.

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97. SOOIl the snow was johled to fhe Russiall atlacks, making the Frellch relreat evell more difficult. 98. Th e m ost terrible dallger, alollg wit" the cold. was presented by the Russian partisans. rhe moujiks alld the stragglers, after impeding the flow of French supplies, Irallsformed 'he march of the Gralld Army ill'o all agoni,illR retreat.

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frustrated by the Russian intervention, but Napoleon was still sure that he could cover up his tracks from the enemy. Eugene found no difficulty in getting his men to fight in top form, given the circumstances: up to then the Italians had not had an opportunity to distinguish themselves in the Russian campaign, save for interventions by some units at Borodino. The battle of Malo-Yaroslavets made the Russians understand that Napoleon's men still had lots of drive and firing power. Dokhturov was forced to ask for help. Kutuzov, who was encamped behind the fighting units, rushed Raevskii's men to the scene, but their intervention had no effect on the course of the battle. The Italians amazed everybody on that day. On the following day the English General Robert Wilson , the British Military Commissioner attached to the Russian headquarters, wrote the following in his report: "The Italian army corps at MaloYaroslavets surprised me with its heroism. Sixteen thousand of these valiant men defeated 80,000 Russian troops." 'The fourth army corps, in effect, fought with a courage born of desperation. General Domenico Pino - the commander of an Italian division - was wounded alongside his brother, who had been riddled with bullets, while he was exhorting his men to resist. Another Italian, Colonel Peralda, was seen running to the head of his regiment of light infantrymen, shouting: "Don't fire your muskets, men, don't fire! The bayonet is the weapon of the guard! Fix bayonets, Italians!" When the Russians mounted their final assault the same Peralda, who had also assumed command of the second "Pino column," managed to drag his exhausted men once more into action against the enemy: "Remember that this is the battle of the Italians. Win or die!"

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Many indeed did die. The losses of the fourth army corps that day were 4,000 dead and wounded. After eighteen hours of exhausting combat, the Italians were still at their post, while the army continued its march, in expectation that the Russians might again try to bar the way. However, Kutuzov had given orders that the invaders were to be unmolested for the moment. An eyewitness, the Italian officer Filippo Pisani, described the final phase of that battle as follows: "Napoleon arrived on the field of battle at ten o'clock in the morning on October 25, followed by a company of Mamelukes, or which at least dressed in that manner, with curved swords, Turkish-style. Upon meeting Viceroy Eugene he embraced him, saying, 'The honor of this wonderful day of October 24 belongs to you and your brave Italians.' " Pisani adds that the Emperor "promised rewards and promotions which were later not given to us to reap because of the subsequent disasters of the retreat." The fourth army corps also resumed its march. The signal was given by a cannon shot. "While crossing the city," writes Filippo Pisani, "we made our way with difficulty because of the obstruction presented by the bodies of the dead and the wounded. The former were flattened out under the wheels of our wagons and we tried to dodge the latter; these wounded soldiers, in the name of what is most holy, implored us take them along with us, but with great sorrow we were forced to leave many of them behind." There was no time to lose since the long march was only at its beginning and the Cossacks gave no respite. Napoleon himself almost fell into the hands of General Platov's Cossacks, in the vicinity of MaloYaroslavets. He was saved by Count Rapp, who

99. November 8, 1812: Napoleon warmin g himself at a bivouac {ire . The Emperor lelt the Grand Army only in the last days in order to arrive in Paris before the news of the disaster. 100. A corpse in the snow serves as a meal fo r ravens: thus did an illustrator of the late nineteenth century symbolize the Napoleonic venture in Russia .

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placed his horse between Napoleon and the Cossack chieftain. who killed the beast with a sword thrust. Fortunately none of those shouting Cossacks realized that the Emperor of the French was only a few feet away. Immediately a platoon of the cavalry of the Guard rushed to the scene and put the Cossacks to flight. The episode is very indicative of the state of affairs from the very first days. But the situation changed increasingly for the worse because of the grueling march, the growing hunger, and the bitter cold; because of the ever-increasing ambushes set by the partisans, the constant assaults of the Cossacks; and because of the awareness that the strategic march to Kaluga had been followed by a real march of withdrawal to Smolensk, while Marshal Davout's third army corps in the rear tried to keep the Russians at bay. The endless column crossed swamp after swamp and was swallowed by forest after forest and climbed hill after hill in an increasing state of disorder and confusion. Only Davout managed to keep his men in closest ranks, but such a tactic in the end turned out to be dangerous because the Cossacks picked off too many victims each time they attacked the flanks. Soon the rear guard remained all too far back and Napoleon was forced to invite Davout to step up the march. Meanwhile the Grand Army crossed the plain of the battle of Borodino, where the dead, in a state of putrefaction, were still piled in heaps everywhere and the mute witnesses to that terrible day were horrifying to behold. The men crossed those hills in utter silence, until they arrived at the Abbey of Kolotskoi, where many wounded survivors of the great battle were still sheltered, worn out by the cold and pros-

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101. The table, the chair, and the lamp that Napoleon used during his military campaigns.

trate with hunger. Those who could took positions along the road and stretched their arms imploringly towards their comrades who were leaving Russia: Napoleon ordered that every carriage and wagon was to take a wounded soldier on board, leaving behind only the very weak who in any case would not be able to survive.

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On the evening of that very day the news ran up and down the column that several sutler units, whose carts were piled high with booty looted in Moscow, had freed themselves of excess weight, so as not to burden the horses beyond the point of endurance, by shoving the wounded off their carts. This crime came to light only because one of the poor wretches - he

102. The soldiers 01 th e engineer corps building a bridge ill order to enable the remnallts 01 the Grand Army 10 cross a river. / 1 was owing 10 the sell-sacrifice 01 POlltOOIl engineers Ihat a part 01 Ihe French army reach Prussia.

happened to be a general - managed to survive on the road so that he could be picked up once more. This story sent a shiver of horror and disgust through the column. If the troops were capable of perpetrating such atrocities it meant they were in a desperate plight and a desperate state of mind. Indeed many symptoms pointed to this. Other atrocities came to light more or less at the same time. In the environs of Ciaz the Grand Army found the corpses of several Russians strewn on the ground, with their heads bashed in. It did not take much imagination to infer what had happened: about 2,000 Russian prisoners, escorted by Polish, Spanish , and Portuguese units, were marching in the vanguard of the retreating army. There was no food for them, the prisoners were in no condition to drag themselves another inch , so somebody had decided to put an end to their suffering by bashing their heads in with the butt of a rifle. The crime horrified everybody. The Marquis de Caulaincourt - the former French ambassador to St. Petersburg - turned to the Emperor with an expression of revulsion on his face and said: "This is a frightful atrocity. Is this, then, the civilization that we are bringing to Russia? What will be the effect of such barbarities on the enemy? Do we not also leave our wounded and large numbers of prisoners to hi s mercies? Would not the Russians be justified in making our men suffer terrible reprisals for this?" The Emperor was silent, according to Segur, but coldblooded murder was halted next day: the Poles, Spaniards, and Portuguese limited themselves to letting the Russians in their charge die of hunger. After all, it would not have been prudent to let them go scot-free, since they would have quickly informed Kutuzov's army corps that Napoleon's army was

fighting a losing battle against hunger and was in desperate straits. The killings continued nonetheless. At Vyazma, where the Russians tried to break the column in two and where the army corps under Eugene and Davout had to fight doggedly against General Miloradovich's attacks, Marshal Ney took up the position of rear guard. The Russian general staff exerted enormous pressure on Kutuzov to force the French into battle on the open field in order to destroy them. Indeed, Czar Alexander himself repeatedly and explicitly demanded this battIe. The wily old field marshal always avoided making a reply and refused to engage in a definitive clash which to him seemed useless: Russia would defend herself by herself, with the strength of her measureless distances. As Tolstoy was to describe it so magnificently in "War and Peace," "The Russian army had to cut like a whip applied to a running animal." For the moment the Russians could be satisfied with scenting out the fleeing enemy, forcing him to leave thousands of men along the way. The Grand Army was continuing its march towards Smolensk, which now appeared like a mirage beyond reach. The men, and Napoleon himself, had by now idealized it, with its storehouses overflowing with provisions, its hot food, and its shelters against the bitter cold. What was left of the Grand Army found the strength to go on by daydreaming about what it would find in Smolensk. And this called for lots of courage. Segur reports that on the day following the clash with Miloradovich, it was discovered that the army corps under Prince Eugene and Davout were more than halved. "We had saved our honor," writes Segur, who was always at Napoleon's side, "but there were enormous gaps in our ranks. Everything had to be reduced in order to

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103. D espite everythillg, Napoleon's army put up a desperate resistance to the attacks of the Russians. 104. The crossing of the BeTel-ina, in a popular French engraving: the veterans of the greate.