"This then was the bank which they had studded with their bayonets! this the allied country which had disappeared only five months before, under the steps of their immense united army, and seemed to them then to be metamorphosed into moving hills and valleys of men and horses! These were the same valleys, from which, under the rays of a burning sun, poured forth the three long columns of dragoons and cuirassiers, resembling three rivers of glittering iron and brass. And now men, arms, eagles, horses, the sun itself, and even this frontier river, which they had crossed replete with ardour and hope, all have disappeared. The Niemen is now only a long mass of flakes of ice, caught and chained to each other by the increasing severity of the winter. Instead of the three French bridges, brought from a distance of five hundred leagues, and thrown across it with such audacious promptitude, a Russian bridge is alone standing. Finally, in the room of these innumerable warriors, of their four hundred thousand comrades, who had been so often their partners in victory, and who had dashed forward with such joy and pride into the territory of Russia, they saw issuing from these pale and frozen deserts, only a thousand infantry and horsemen still under arms, nine cannon, and twenty thousand miserable wretches covered with rags, with downcast looks, hollow eyes, earthy and livid complexions, long beards matted with the frost; some disputing in silence the narrow passage of the bridge, which, in spite of their small number was not sufficient to the eagerness of their flight; others fleeing dispersed over the asperities of the river, labouring and dragging themselves from one point of ice to another; and this was the whole grand army! Besides, many of these fugitives were recruits who had just joined it."

Two kings, one prince, eight marshals followed by a few officers, generals on foot, dispersed, and without any attendants; finally, a few hundred men of the old guard, still armed, were its remains; they alone represented it.

Or rather, I should say, it still breathed completely and entirely in Marshal Ney. Comrades! allies! enemies! here I invoke your testimony; let us pay the homage which is due to the memory of an unfortunate hero: the facts will be sufficient.

All were flying, and Murat himself, traversing Kowno as he had done Wilna, first gave, and then withdrew the order to rally at Tilsit, and subsequently fixed upon Gumbinnen. Ney then entered Kowno, accompanied only by his aides-de-camp, for all besides had given way, or fallen around him. From the time of his leaving Wiazma, this was the fourth rear-guard which had been worn out and melted in his hands. But winter and famine, still more than the Russians, had destroyed them. For the fourth time, he remained alone before the enemy, and still unshaken, he sought for a fifth rear-guard.

At Kowno the marshal found a company of artillery, three hundred German soldiers who formed its garrison, and General Marchand with four hundred men; of these he took the command. He first walked over the town to reconnoitre its position, and to rally some additional forces, but he found only some sick and wounded, who were endeavouring, in tears, to follow our retreat. For the eighth time since we left Moscow, we were obliged to abandon these en masse in their hospitals, as they had been abandoned singly along the whole march, on all our fields of battle, and at all our bivouacs.

Several thousand soldiers covered the marketplace and the neighbouring streets; but they were laid out stiff before the magazines of spirits which they had broken open, and where they drank the cup of death, from which they fancied they were to inhale fresh life. These were the only succours which Murat had left him; Ney found himself left alone in Russia, with seven hundred foreign recruits. At Kowno, as it had been after the disasters of Wiazma, of Smolensk, of the Berezina, and of Wilna, it was to him that the honour of our arms and all the peril of the last steps of our retreat were again confided.

On the 14th, at daybreak, the Russians commenced their attack. One of their columns made a hasty advance from the Wilna road, while another crossed the Niemen on the ice above the town, landed on the Prussian territory, and, proud of being the first to cross its frontier, marched to the bridge of Kowno, to close that outlet upon Ney, and completely cut off his retreat.

The first firing was heard at the Wilna gate; Ney ran thither, with a view to drive away Platof's artillery with his own; but he found his cannon had been already spiked, and that his artillerymen had fled! Enraged, he darted forward, and elevating his sword, would have killed the officer who commanded them, had it not been for his aide-de-camp, who warded off the blow, and enabled this miserable fellow to make his escape.

Ney then summoned his infantry, but only one of the two feeble battalions of which it was composed had taken up arms; it consisted of the three hundred Germans of the garrison. He drew them up, encouraged them, and as the enemy was approaching, was just about to give them the order to fire, when a Russian cannon ball, grazing the palisade, came and broke the thigh of their commanding officer. He fell, and without the least hesitation, finding that his wound was mortal, he coolly drew out his pistols and blew out his brains before his troop. Terrified at this act of despair, his soldiers were completely scared, all of them at once threw down their arms, and fled in disorder.

Ney, abandoned by all, neither deserted himself nor his post. After vain efforts to detain these fugitives, he collected their muskets, which were still loaded, became once more a common soldier, and with only four others, kept facing thousands of the Russians. His audacity stopped them; it made some of his artillerymen ashamed, who imitated their marshal; it gave time to his aide-de-camp Heymes, and to General Gerard to embody thirty soldiers, bring forward two or three light pieces, and to Generals Ledru and Marchand to collect the only battalion which remained.

But at that moment the second attack of the Russians commenced on the other side of the Niemen, and near the bridge of Kowno; it was then half-past two o'clock. Ney sent Ludru, Marchand, and their four hundred men forward to retake and secure that passage. As to himself, without giving way, or disquieting himself farther as to what was passing in his rear, he kept on fighting at the head of his thirty men, and maintained himself until night at the Wilna gate. He then traversed the town and crossed the Niemen, constantly fighting, retreating but never flying, marching after all the others, supporting to the last moment the honour of our arms, and for the hundredth time during the last forty days and forty nights, putting his life and liberty in jeopardy to save a few more Frenchmen. Finally, he was the last of the grand army who quitted that fatal Russia, exhibiting to the world the impotence of fortune against great courage, and proving that with heroes every thing turns to glory, even the greatest disasters.

It was eight o'clock at night when he reached the allied bank. Then it was, that seeing the completion of the catastrophe, Marchand repulsed to the entrance of the bridge, and the road of Wilkowiski which Murat had taken, completely covered with the enemy's troops, he darted off to the right, plunged into the woods, and disappeared.



CHAP. V.

When Murat reached Gumbinnen, he was exceedingly surprised to find Ney already there, and to find, that since it had left Kowno, the army was marching without a rear-guard. Fortunately, the pursuit of the Russians, after they had reconquered their own territory, became slackened. They seemed to hesitate on the Prussian frontier, not knowing whether they should enter it as allies or as enemies. Murat took advantage of their uncertainty to halt a few days at Gumbinnen, and to direct the remains of the different corps to the towns on the borders of the Vistula.

Previous to this dislocation of the army, he assembled the commanders of it. I know not what evil genius it was that inspired him at this council. One would fain believe that it was the embarrassment he felt before these warriors for his precipitate flight, and spite against the Emperor, who had left him with the responsibility of it; or it might be shame at appearing again, vanquished, in the midst of the nations whom our victories had most oppressed; but as his language bore a much more mischievous character, which his subsequent actions did not belie, and as they were the first symptoms of his defection, history must not pass over them in silence.

This warrior, who had been elevated to the throne solely by the right of victory, now returned discomfited. From the first step he took upon vanquished territory, he fancied he felt it everywhere trembling under his feet, and that his crown was tottering on his head. A thousand times during the campaign, he had exposed himself to the greatest dangers; but he, who, as a king, had shown as little fear of death as the meanest soldier of the vanguard, could not bear the apprehension of living without a crown. Behold him then, in the midst of the commanders, whom his brother had placed under his direction, accusing that brother's ambition, which he had shared, in order to free himself from the responsibility which its gratification had involved.

He exclaimed, "that it was no longer possible to serve such a madman! that there was no safety in supporting his cause; that no monarch in Europe could now place any reliance on his word, or in treaties concluded with him. He himself was in despair for having rejected the propositions of the English; had it not been for that, he would still be a great monarch, such as the Emperor of Austria, and the King of Prussia."

Davoust abruptly cut him short. "The King of Prussia, the Emperor of Austria," said he to him, "are monarchs by the grace of God, of time, and the custom of nations. But as to you, you are only a king by the grace of Napoleon, and of the blood of Frenchmen; you cannot remain so but through Napoleon, and by continuing united to France. You are led away by the blackest ingratitude!" And he declared to him that he would immediately denounce his treachery to his Emperor; the other marshals remained silent. They made allowance for the violence of the king's grief, and attributed solely to his inconsiderate heat, the expressions which the hatred and suspicious character of Davoust had but too clearly comprehended.

Murat was put entirely out of countenance; he felt himself guilty. Thus was stifled the first spark of treachery, which at a later period was destined to ruin France. It is with regret that history commemorates it, as repentance and misfortune have atoned for the crime.

We were soon obliged to carry our humiliation to Koenigsberg. The grand army, which, during the last twenty years, had shown itself successively triumphant in all the capitals of Europe, now, for the first time, re-appeared mutilated, disarmed, and fugitive, in one of those which had been most humiliated by its glory. Its population crowded on our passage to count our wounds, and to estimate, by the extent of our disasters, that of the hopes they might venture to entertain; we were compelled to feast their greedy looks with our miseries, to pass under the yoke of their hope, and while dragging our misfortunes through the midst of their odious joy, to march under the insupportable weight of hated calamity.

The feeble remnant of the grand army did not bend under this burden. Its shadow, already almost dethroned, still exhibited itself imposing; it preserved its royal air; although vanquished by the elements, it kept up, in the presence of men, its victorious and commanding attitude.

On their side, the Germans, either from slowness or fear, received us docilely; their hatred restrained itself under an appearance of coolness; and as they scarcely ever act from themselves, they were obliged to relieve our miseries, during the time that they were looking for a signal. Koenigsberg was soon unable to contain them. Winter, which had followed us thither, deserted us there all at once; in one night the thermometer fell twenty degrees.

This sudden change was fatal to us. A great number of soldiers and generals, whom the tension of the atmosphere had hitherto supported by a continued irritation, sunk and fell into decomposition. Lariboissiere, general-in-chief of the artillery, fell a sacrifice; Eble, the pride of the army, followed him. Every day and every hour, our consternation was increased by fresh deaths.

In the midst of this general mourning, a sudden insurrection, and a letter from Macdonald, contributed to convert all these sorrows into despair. The sick could no longer cherish the expectation of dying free; the friend was either compelled to desert his expiring friend, the brother his brother, or to drag them in that state to Elbing. The insurrection was only alarming as a symptom; it was put down; but the intelligence transmitted by Macdonald was decisive.



CHAP. VI.

On the side where that marshal commanded, the whole of the war had been only a rapid march from Tilsit to Mittau, a display of force from the mouth of the Aa to Duenaburg, and finally, a long defensive position in front of Riga; the composition of that army being almost entirely Prussian, its position and Napoleon's orders so willed it.

It was a piece of great audacity in the Emperor to entrust his left wing, as well as his right and his retreat, to Prussians and Austrians. It was observed, that at the same time he had dispersed the Poles throughout the whole army; many persons thought that it would have been preferable to collect in one point the zeal of the latter, and to have divided the hatred of the former. But we everywhere required natives as interpreters, scouts, or guides, and felt the value of their audacious ardour on the true points of attack. As to the Prussians and Austrians, it is probable that they would not have allowed themselves to be dispersed. On the left, Macdonald, with seven thousand Bavarians, Westphalians, and Poles, mixed with twenty-two thousand Prussians, appeared sufficient to answer for the latter, as well as for the Russians.

In the advance march, there had been at first nothing to do, but to drive the Russian posts before them, and to carry off some magazines. Afterwards there were a few skirmishes between the Aa and Riga. The Prussians, after a rather warm affair, took Eckau from the Russian General Lewis; after which both sides remained quiet for twenty days. Macdonald employed that time in taking possession of Duenaburg, and in getting the heavy artillery brought to Mittau, which was necessary for the siege of Riga.

On the intelligence of his approach, on the 23d of August, the commander-in-chief at Riga made all his troops march out of the place in three columns. The two weakest were to make two false attacks; the first by proceeding along the coast of the Baltic sea, and the second directly on Mittau; the third, which was the strongest, and commanded by Lewis, was at the same time to retake Eckau, drive back the Prussians as far as the Aa, cross that river, and either capture or destroy the park of artillery.

The plan succeeded as far as beyond the Aa, when Grawert, supported latterly by Kleist, repulsed Lewis, and following the Russians closely as far as Eckau, defeated them there entirely, Lewis fled in disorder as far as the Duena, which he recrossed by fording it, leaving behind a great number of prisoners.

Thus far Macdonald was satisfied. It is even said, that at Smolensk, Napoleon thought of elevating Yorck to the dignity of a marshal of the empire, at the same time that at Vienna he caused Schwartzenberg to be named field-marshal. The claims of these two commanders to the honour were by no means equal.

In both wings, disagreeable symptoms were manifested; with the Austrians, it was among the officers that they were fermenting; their general kept them firm in their alliance with us; he even apprised us of their bad disposition, and pointed out the means of preventing the contagion from spreading among the other allied troops which were mixed with his.

The case was quite the contrary with our left wing; the Prussian army marched without the least after-thought, at the very time that its general was conspiring against us. On the right wing, therefore, during the time of combat, it was the leader who drew his troops after him in spite of themselves, while, on the left wing, the troops pushed forward their commander, almost in spite of himself.

Among the latter, the officers, the soldiers, and Grawert himself, a loyal old warrior, who had no political feelings, entered frankly into the war. They fought like lions on all occasions when their commander left them at liberty to do so; they expressed themselves anxious to wash out, in the eyes of the French, the shame of their defeat in 1806, to reconquer our esteem, to vanquish in the presence of their conquerors, to prove that their defeat was only attributable to their government, and that they were worthy of a better fate.

Yorck had higher views. He belonged to the society of the Friends of Virtue, whose principle was hatred of the French, and whose object was their complete expulsion from Germany. But Napoleon was still victorious, and the Prussian afraid to commit himself. Besides, the justice, the mildness, and the military reputation of Macdonald had completely gained the affection of his troops. They said "they had never been so happy as when under the command of a Frenchman." In fact, as they were united with the conquerors, and shared the rights of conquest with them, they had allowed themselves to be seduced by the all-powerful attraction of being on the side of the victor.

Every thing contributed to it. Their administration was directed by an intendant and agents taken from their own army. They lived in abundance. It was on that very point, however, that the quarrel between Macdonald and Yorck began, and that the hatred of the latter found an opening to diffuse itself.

First of all, some complaints were made in the country against their administration. Shortly after, a French administrator arrived, and either from rivalry or a spirit of justice, he accused the Prussian intendant of exhausting the country by enormous requisitions of cattle. "He sent them," it was said, "into Prussia, which had been exhausted by our passage; the army was deprived of them, and a dearth would very soon be felt in it." By his account, Yorck was perfectly aware of the manoeuvre. Macdonald believed the accusation, dismissed the accused person, and confided the administration to the accuser; Yorck, filled with spite, thought henceforward of nothing but revenge.

Napoleon was then at Moscow. The Prussian was on the watch; he joyfully foresaw the consequences of that rash enterprise, and it appears as if he yielded to the temptation of taking advantage of it, and of getting the start of fortune. On the 29th of September, the Russian general learned that Yorck had uncovered Mittau; and either from having received reinforcements, (two divisions had actually just arrived from Finland,) or from confidence of another kind, he adventured himself as far as that city, which he retook, and was preparing to push his advantage. The grand park of the besiegers' artillery was about to be carried off; Yorck, if we are to believe those who were witnesses, had exposed it, he remained motionless, he betrayed it.

It is said that the chief of his staff felt indignant at this treachery; we are assured that he represented to his general in the warmest terms, that he would ruin himself, and destroy the honour of the Prussian arms; and that, finally, Yorck, moved by his representations, allowed Kleist to put himself in movement. His approach was quite sufficient. But on this occasion, although there was a regular battle, there were scarcely four hundred men put hors du combat on both sides. As soon as this petty warfare was over, each army tranquilly resumed its former quarters.



CHAP. VII.

On the receipt of this intelligence, Macdonald became uneasy, and very much incensed; he hurried from his right wing, where perhaps he had remained too long at a distance from the Prussians. The surprise of Mittau, the danger which his park of artillery had run of being captured, Yorck's obstinacy in refusing to pursue the enemy, and the secret details which reached him from the interior of Yorck's head-quarters, were all sufficiently alarming. But the more ground there was of suspicion, the more it was necessary to dissemble; for as the Prussian army was entirely guiltless of the designs of its leader, and had fought readily, and as the enemy had given way, appearances had been preserved, and it would have been wise policy in Macdonald if he had appeared satisfied.

He did quite the contrary. His quick disposition, or his loyalty, were unable to dissemble; he burst out into reproaches against the Prussian general, at the very moment when his troops, satisfied with their victory, were only looking for praise and rewards. Yorck artfully contrived to make his soldiers, whose expectations had been frustrated, participators in the disgust of a humiliation which had been reserved solely for himself.

We find in Macdonald's letters the real causes of his dissatisfaction. He wrote to Yorck, "that it was shameful that his posts were continually attacked, and that in return he had never once harassed the enemy; that ever since he had been in sight of them, he had done no more than repel attacks, and in no one instance had ever acted on the offensive, although his officers and troops were filled with the best dispositions." This last remark was very true, for in general it was remarkable to see the ardour of all these Germans for a cause completely foreign to them, and which might to them even appear hostile.

They all rivalled each other in eagerness to rush into the midst of danger, in order to acquire the esteem of the grand army, and an eulogium from Napoleon. Their princes preferred the plain silver star of French honour to their richest orders. At that time the genius of Napoleon still appeared to have dazzled or subdued every one. Equally munificent to reward as prompt and terrible to punish, he appeared like one of those great centres of nature, the dispenser of all good. In many of the Germans, there was united with this feeling that of a respectful admiration for a life which was so completely stamped with the marvellous, which so much affects them.

But their admiration was a consequence of victory, and our fatal retreat had already commenced; already, from the north to the south of Europe, the Russian cries of vengeance replied to those of Spain. They crossed and echoed each other in the countries of Germany, which still remained under the yoke; these two great fires, lighted up at the two extremities of Europe, were gradually extending towards its centre, where they were like the dawn of a new day; they covered sparks which were fanned by hearts burning with patriotic hatred, and exalted to fanaticism by mystic rites. Gradually, as our disaster approached to Germany, there was heard rising from her bosom an indistinct rumour, a general, but still trembling, uncertain and confused murmur.

The students of the universities, bred up with ideas of independence, inspired by their ancient constitutions, which secure them so many privileges, full of exalted recollections of the ancient and chivalrous glory of Germany, and for her sake jealous of all foreign glory, had always been our enemies. Total strangers to all political calculations, they had never bent themselves under our victory. Since it had become pale, a similar spirit had caught the politicians and even the military. The association of the Friends of Virtue gave this insurrection the appearance of an extensive plot; some chiefs did certainly conspire, but there was no conspiracy; it was a spontaneous movement, a common and universal sensation.

Alexander skilfully increased this disposition by his proclamations, by his addresses to the Germans, and by the distinction which he made in the treatment of their prisoners. As to the monarchs of Europe, he and Bernadotte were as yet the only ones who marched at the head of their people. All the others, restrained by policy or feelings of honour, allowed themselves to be anticipated by their subjects.

This infection even penetrated to the grand army; after the passage of the Berezina, Napoleon had been informed of it. Communications had been observed to be going on between the Bavarian, Saxon, and Austrian generals. On the left, Yorck's bad disposition increased, and communicated itself to a part of his troops; all the enemies of France had united, and Macdonald was astonished at having to repel the perfidious insinuations of an aide-de-camp of Moreau. The impression made by our victories was still however so deep in all the Germans, they had been so powerfully kept under, that they required a considerable time to raise themselves.

On the 15th of November, Macdonald, seeing that the left of the Russian line had extended itself too far from Riga, between him and the Duena, made some feigned attacks on their whole front, and pushed a real one against their centre, which he broke through rapidly as far as the river, near Dahlenkirchen. The whole left of the Russians, Lewis, and five thousand men, found themselves cut off from their retreat, and thrown back on the Duena. Lewis vainly sought for an outlet; he found his enemy every where, and lost at first two battalions and a squadron. He would have infallibly been taken with his whole force, had he been pressed closer, but he was allowed sufficient space and time to take breath; as the cold increased, and the country offered no means of escape, he ventured to trust himself to the weak ice which had begun to cover the river. He made his troops lay a bed of straw and boards over it, in that manner crossed the Duena at two points between Friedrichstadt and Lindau, and re-entered Riga, at the very moment his comrades had begun to despair of his preservation.

The day after this engagement, Macdonald was informed of the retreat of Napoleon on Smolensk, but not of the disorganization of the army. A few days after, some sinister reports brought him the news of the capture of Minsk. He began to be alarmed, when, on the 4th of December, a letter from Maret, magnifying the victory of the Berezina, announced to him the capture of nine thousand Russians, nine standards, and twelve cannon. The admiral, according to this letter, was reduced to thirteen thousand men.

On the third of December the Russians were again repulsed in one of their sallies from Riga, by the Prussians. Yorck, either from prudence or conscience, restrained himself. Macdonald had become reconciled to him. On the 19th of December, fourteen days after the departure of Napoleon, eight days after the capture of Wilna by Kutusoff, in short when Macdonald commenced his retreat, the Prussian army was still faithful.



CHAP. VIII.

It was from Wilna, on the 9th of December, that orders were transmitted to Macdonald, of which a Prussian officer was the bearer, directing him to retreat slowly upon Tilsit. No care was taken to send these instructions by different channels. They did not even think of employing Lithuanians to carry a message of that importance. In this manner the last army, the only one which remained unbroken, was exposed to the risk of destruction. An order, which was written at the distance of only four days' journey from Macdonald, lingered so long on the road, that it was nine days in reaching him.

The marshal directed his retreat on Tilsit, by passing between Telzs and Szawlia. Yorck, with the greatest part of the Prussians, forming his rear-guard, marched at a day's distance from him, in contact with the Russians, and left entirely to themselves. By some this was regarded as a great error on the part of Macdonald; but the majority did not venture to decide, alleging that in a situation so delicate, confidence and suspicion were alike dangerous.

The latter also said that the French marshal did every thing which prudence required of him, by retaining with him one of Yorck's divisions; the other, which was commanded by Massenbach, was under the direction of the French general Bachelu, and formed the vanguard. The Prussian army was thus separated into two corps, Macdonald in the middle, and the one seemed to be a guarantee to him for the other.

At first every thing went on well, although the danger was every where, in the front, in the rear, and on the flanks; for the grand army of Kutusoff had already pushed forward three vanguards, on the retreat of the Duke of Tarentum. Macdonald encountered the first at Kelm, the second at Piklupenen, and the third at Tilsit. The zeal of the black hussars and the Prussian dragoons appeared to increase. The Russian hussars of Ysum were sabred and overthrown at Kelm. On the 27th of December, at the close of a ten hours' march, these Prussians came in sight of Piklupenen, and the Russian brigade of Laskow; without stopping to take breath, they charged, threw it into disorder, and cut off two of its battalions; next day they retook Tilsit from the Russian commander Tettenborn.

A letter from Berthier, dated at Antonowo, on the 14th of December, had reached Macdonald several days before, in which he was informed that the army no longer existed, and that it was necessary that he should arrive speedily on the Pregel, in order to cover Koenigsberg, and to be able to retreat upon Elbing and Marienburg. This news the marshal concealed from the Prussians. Hitherto the cold and the forced marches had produced no complaints from them; there was no symptom of discontent exhibited by these allies; brandy and provisions were not deficient.

But on the 28th, when General Bachelu extended to the right, towards Regnitz, in order to drive away the Russians, who had taken refuge there after their expulsion from Tilsit, the Prussian officers began to complain that their troops were fatigued; their vanguard marched unwillingly and carelessly, allowed itself to be surprised, and was thrown into disorder. Bachelu, however, restored the fortune of the day, and entered Regnitz.

During this time, Macdonald, who had arrived at Tilsit, was waiting for Yorck and the rest of the Prussian army, which did not make its appearance. On the 29th, the officers, and the orders which he sent them, were vainly multiplied; no news of Yorck transpired. On the 30th, Macdonald's anxiety was redoubled; it was fully exhibited in one of his letters of that day's date, in which, however, he did not yet venture to appear suspicious of a defection. He wrote "that he could not understand the reason of this delay; that he had sent a number of officers and emissaries with orders to Yorck to rejoin him, but that he had received no answer. In consequence, when the enemy was advancing against him, he was compelled to suspend his retreat; for he could not make up his mind to desert this corps, to retreat without Yorck; and yet this delay was ruinous." This letter concluded thus:—"I am lost in conjectures. If I retreat, what would the Emperor say? what would be said by France, by the army, by Europe? Would it not be an indelible stain on the tenth corps, voluntarily to abandon a part of its troops, and without being compelled to it otherwise than by prudence? Oh, no; whatever may be the result, I am resigned, and willingly devote myself as a victim, provided I am the only one:" and he concluded by wishing the French general "that sleep which his melancholy situation had long denied him."

On the same day, he recalled Bachelu and the Prussian cavalry, which was still at Regnitz, to Tilsit. It was night when Bachelu received the order; he wished to execute it, but the Prussian colonels refused; and they covered their refusal under different pretexts. "The roads," they said, "were not passable. They were not accustomed to make their men march in such dreadful weather, and at so late an hour! They were responsible to their king for their regiments." The French general was astonished, commanded them to be silent, and ordered them to obey; his firmness subdued them, they obeyed, but slowly. A Russian general had glided into their ranks, and pressed them to deliver up this Frenchman, who was alone in the midst of those who commanded them; but the Prussians, although fully prepared to abandon Bachelu, could not resolve to betray him: at last they began their march.

At Regnitz, at eight o'clock at night, they had refused to mount their horses; at Tilsit, where they arrived at two in the morning, they refused to alight from them. At five o'clock in the morning, however, they had all gone to their quarters, and as order appeared to be restored among them, the general went to take some rest. But the obedience had been entirely feigned, for no sooner did the Prussians find themselves unobserved, than they resumed their arms, went out with Massenbach at their head, and escaped from Tilsit in silence, and by favour of the night. The first dawn of the last day of the year 1812, informed Macdonald that the Prussian army had deserted him.

It was Yorck, who, instead of rejoining him, deprived him of Massenbach, whom he had just recalled. His own defection, which had commenced on the 26th of December, was just consummated. On the 30th of December, a convention between Yorck and the Russian general Dibitch was concluded at Taurogen. "The Prussian troops were to be cantoned on their own frontiers, and remain neutral during two months, even in the event of this armistice being disapproved of by their own government. At the end of that time, the roads should be open to them to rejoin the French troops, should their sovereign persist in ordering them to do so."

Yorck, but more particularly Massenbach, either from fear of the Polish division to which they were united, or from respect for Macdonald, showed some delicacy in their defection. They wrote to the marshal. Yorck announced to him the convention he had just concluded, which he coloured with specious pretexts. "He had been reduced to it by fatigue and necessity; but," he added, "that whatever judgment the world might form of his conduct, he was not at all uneasy about; that his duty to his troops, and the most mature reflexion, had dictated it to him; that, finally, whatever might be the appearances, he was actuated by the purest motives."

Massenbach excused himself for his clandestine departure. "He had wished to spare himself a sensation which his heart felt too painfully. He had dreaded, lest the sentiments of respect and esteem which he should preserve to the end of his life for Macdonald, should have prevented him from doing his duty."

Macdonald saw all at once his force reduced from twenty-nine thousand to nine thousand, but in the state of anxiety in which he had been living for the last two days, any termination to it was a relief.



CHAP. IX.

Thus commenced the defection of our allies. I shall not venture to set myself up as a judge of the morality of this event; posterity will decide upon it. As a contemporaneous historian, however, I conceive myself bound not only to state the facts, but also the impression they have left, and such as it still remains, in the minds of the principal leaders of the two corps of the allied army, either as actors or sufferers.

The Prussians only waited for an opportunity to break our alliance, which was forced upon them; when the moment arrived, they embraced it. Not only, however, did they refuse to betray Macdonald, but they did not even wish to quit him, until they had, as it may be said, drawn him out of Russia and placed him in safety. On his side, when Macdonald became sensible that he was abandoned, but without having positive proofs of it, he obstinately remained at Tilsit, at the mercy of the Prussians, sooner than give them a motive of defection, by too speedy a retreat.

The Prussians did not abuse this noble conduct. There was defection on their part, but no treachery; which, in this age, and after the evils they had endured, may still appear meritorious; they did not join themselves with the Russians. When they arrived on their own frontier, they could not resign themselves to aid their conqueror in defending their native soil against those who came in the character of their deliverers, and who were so; they became neutral, and this was not, I must repeat, until Macdonald, disengaged from Russia and the Russians, had his retreat free.

This marshal continued it from Koenigsberg, by Labiau and Tente. His rear was protected by Mortier, and Heudelet's division, whose troops, newly arrived, still occupied Insterburg, and kept Tchitchakof in check. On the 3d of January he effected his junction with Mortier and covered Koenigsberg.

It was, however, a happy circumstance for Yorck's reputation, that Macdonald, thus weakened, and whose retreat his defection had interrupted, was enabled to rejoin the grand army. The inconceivable slowness of Wittgenstein's march saved that marshal; the Russian general, however, overtook him at Labiau and Tente; and there, but for the efforts of Bachelu and his brigade, the valour of the Polish Colonel Kameski, and Captain Ostrowski, and the Bavarian Major Mayer, the corps of Macdonald, thus deserted, would have been broken or destroyed; in that case Yorck would appear to have betrayed him, and history would, with justice, have stigimatized him with the name of traitor. Six hundred French, Bavarians, and Poles, remained dead on these two fields of battle; their blood accuses the Prussians for not having provided, by an additional article, for the safe retreat of the leader whom they had deserted.

The King of Prussia disavowed Yorck's conduct. He dismissed him, appointed Kleist to succeed him in the command, ordered the latter to arrest his late commander, and send him, as well as Massenbach, to Berlin, there to undergo their trial. But these generals preserved their command in spite of him; the Prussian army did not consider their monarch at liberty; this opinion was founded on the presence of Augereau and some French troops at Berlin.

Frederick, however, was perfectly aware of the annihilation of our army. At Smorgoni, Narbonne refused to accept the mission to that monarch, until Napoleon gave him authority to make the most unreserved communication. He, Augereau, and several others have declared that Frederick was not merely restrained by his position in the midst of the remains of the grand army, and by the dread of Napoleon's re-appearance at the head of a fresh one, but also by his plighted faith; for every thing is of a mixed character in the moral as well as the physical world, and even in the most trifling of our actions there is a variety of different motives. But, finally, his good faith yielded to necessity, and his dread to a greater dread. He saw himself, it was said, threatened with a species of forfeiture by his people and by our enemies.

It should be remarked that the Prussian nation, which drew its sovereign toward Yorck, only ventured to rise successively, as the Russians came in sight, and by degrees, as our feeble remains quitted their territory. A single fact, which took place during the retreat, will paint the dispositions of the people, and show how much, notwithstanding the hatred they bore us, they were curbed under the ascendancy of our victories.

When Davoust was recalled to France, he passed, with only two attendants, through the town of X * * *. The Russians were daily expected there; its population were incensed at the sight of these last Frenchmen. Murmurs, mutual excitations, and finally, outcries, rapidly succeeded each other; the most violent speedily surrounded the carriage of the marshal, and were already about to unharness the horses, when Davoust made his appearance, rushed upon the most insolent of these insurgents, dragged him behind his carriage, and made his servants fasten him to it. Frightened at this action, the people stopped short, seized with motionless consternation, and then quietly and silently opened a passage for the marshal, who passed through the midst of them, carrying off his prisoner.



CHAP. X.

In this sudden manner did our left wing fall. On our right wing, on the side of the Austrians, whom a well-cemented alliance retained, a phlegmatic people, governed despotically by an united aristocracy, there was no sudden explosion to be apprehended. This wing detached itself from us insensibly, and with the formalities required by its political position.

On the 10th of December, Schwartzenberg was at Slonim, presenting successively vanguards towards Minsk, Nowogrodeck, and Bienitza. He was still persuaded that the Russians were beaten and fleeing before Napoleon, when he was informed at the same moment of the Emperor's departure, and of the destruction of the grand army, but in so vague a manner that he was for some time without any direction.

In his embarrassment he addressed himself to the French ambassador at Warsaw. The answer of that minister authorized him "not to sacrifice another man." In consequence, he retreated on the 14th of December from Slonim towards Bialystok. The instructions which reached him from Murat in the middle of this movement were conformable to it.

About the 21st of December, an order from Alexander suspended hostilities on that point, and as the interest of the Russians agreed with that of the Austrians, there was very soon a mutual understanding. A moveable armistice, which was approved by Murat, was immediately concluded. The Russian general and Schwartzenberg were to manoeuvre on each other, the Russian on the offensive, and the Austrian on the defensive, but without coming to blows.

Regnier's corps, now reduced to ten thousand men, was not included in the arrangement; but Schwartzenberg, while he yielded to circumstances, persevered in his loyalty. He regularly gave an account of every thing to the commander of the army; he covered the whole front of the French line with his Austrian troops, and preserved it. This prince was not at all complaisant towards the enemy; he believed him not upon his bare word; at every position he was about to yield, he would actually satisfy himself with his own eyes, that he only yielded it to a superior force, ready to combat him. In this manner he arrived upon the Bug and the Narew, from Nur to Ostrolenka, where the war terminated.

He was in this manner covering Warsaw, when, on the 22d of January, he received instructions from his government to abandon the Grand-duchy, to separate his retreat from that of Regnier, and to re-enter Gallicia. To these instructions he only yielded a tardy obedience; he resisted the pressing solicitations and threatening manoeuvres of Miloradowitch until the 25th of January; even then, he effected his retreat upon Warsaw so slowly, that the hospitals and a great part of the magazines were enabled to be evacuated. Finally, he obtained a more favourable capitulation for the Warsavians than they could venture to expect. He did more; although that city was to have been delivered up on the 5th, he only yielded it on the 8th, and thus gave Regnier the start of three days upon the Russians.

Regnier was afterwards, it is true, overtaken and surprised at Kalisch, but that was in consequence of halting too long to protect the flight of some Polish depots. In the first disorder occasioned by this unexpected attack, a Saxon brigade was separated from the French corps, retreated on Schwartzenberg, and was well received by him; Austria allowed it to pass through her territory, and restored it to the grand army, when it was assembled near Dresden.

On the 1st of January, 1813, however, at Koenigsberg, where Murat then was, the desertion of the Prussians and the intrigues forming by Austria were not known, when suddenly Macdonald's despatch, and an insurrection of the people of Koenigsberg, gave information of the beginning of a defection, of which it was impossible to foresee the consequences. The consternation was excessive. The seditious movement was at first only kept down by representations, which Ney very soon changed into threats. Murat hastened his departure for Elbing. Koenigsberg was encumbered with ten thousand sick and wounded, most of whom were abandoned to the generosity of their enemies. Some of them had no reason to complain of it; but prisoners who escaped declared that many of their unfortunate companions were massacred and thrown out of the windows into the streets; that an hospital which contained several hundred sick was set fire to; and they accused the inhabitants of committing these horrid deeds.

On another side, at Wilna, more than sixteen thousand of our prisoners had already perished. The convent of St. Basil contained the greatest number; from the 10th to the 23d of December they had only received some biscuits; but not a piece of wood nor a drop of water had been given them. The snow collected in the courts, which were covered with dead bodies, quenched the burning thirst of the survivors. They threw out of the windows such of the dead bodies as could not be kept in the passages, on the staircases, or among the heaps of corses which were collected in all the apartments. The additional prisoners that were every moment discovering were thrown into this horrible place.

The arrival of the Emperor Alexander and his brother was the only thing that put a stop to these abominations. They had lasted for thirteen days, and if a few escaped out of the twenty thousand of our unfortunate comrades who were made prisoners, it was to these two princes they owed their preservation. But a most violent epidemic had already arisen from the poisonous exhalations of so many corses; it passed from the vanquished to the victors, and fully avenged us. The Russians, however, were living in plenty; our magazines at Smorgoni and Wilna had not been destroyed, and they must have found besides immense quantities of provisions in the pursuit of our routed army.

But Wittgenstein, who had been detached to attack Macdonald, descended the Niemen; Tchitchakof and Platof had pursued Murat towards Kowno, Wilkowiski, and Insterburg; shortly after, the admiral was sent towards Thorn. Finally, on the 9th of January, Alexander and Kutusoff arrived on the Niemen at Merecz. There, as he was about to cross his own frontier, the Russian emperor addressed a proclamation to his troops, completely filled with images, comparisons, and eulogiums, which the winter had much better deserved than his army.



CHAP. XI.

It was not until the 22d of January, and the following days, that the Russians reached the Vistula. During this tardy march, from the 3d to the 11th of January, Murat had remained at Elbing. In this situation of extremity, that monarch was wavering from one plan to another, at the mercy of the elements which were fermenting around him; sometimes they raised his hopes to the highest pitch, at others they sunk him into an abyss of disquietude.

He had taken flight from Koenigsberg in a complete state of discouragement, when the suspension in the march of the Russians, and the junction of Macdonald with Heudelet and Cavaignac, which doubled his forces, suddenly inflamed him with vain hopes. He, who had the day before believed that all was lost, wished to resume the offensive, and began immediately; for he was one of those dispositions who are making fresh resolutions every instant. On that day he determined to push forward, and the next to flee as far as Posen.

This last determination, however, was not taken without reason. The rallying of the army on the Vistula had been completely illusory; the old guard had not altogether more than five hundred effective men; the young guard scarcely any; the first corps, eighteen hundred; the second, one thousand; the third, sixteen hundred; the fourth, seventeen hundred; added to which, most of these soldiers, the remains of six hundred thousand men, could scarcely handle their arms.

In this state of impotence, with the two wings of the army already detached from us, Austria and Prussia failing us together, Poland became a snare which might close around us. On the other hand, Napoleon, who never consented to any cession, was anxious that Dantzic should be defended; it became necessary, therefore, to throw into it all that could keep the field.

Besides, if the truth must be told, when Murat, when at Elbing, talked of reconstituting the army, and was even dreaming of victories, he found that most of the commanders were themselves worn out and disgusted. Misfortune, which leads to fear every thing, and to believe readily all that one fears, had penetrated into their hearts. Several of them were already uneasy about their rank and their grades, about the estates which they had acquired in the conquered countries, and the greater part only sighed to recross the Rhine.

As to the recruits who arrived, they were a mixture of men from several of the German nations. In order to join us they had passed through the Prussian states, from whence arose the exhalation of so much hatred. As they approached, they encountered our discouragement and our long train of disorder; when they entered into line, far from being put into companies with, and supported by old soldiers, they found themselves left alone, to fight with every kind of scourge, to support a cause which was abandoned by those who were most interested in its success; the consequence was, that at the very first bivouac, most of these Germans disbanded themselves. At sight of the disasters of the army returning from Moscow, the tried soldiers of Macdonald were themselves shaken. Notwithstanding this corps d'armee, and the completely fresh division of Heudelet preserved their unity. All these remains were speedily collected into Dantzic; thirty-five thousand soldiers from seventeen different nations, were shut up in it. The remainder, in small numbers, did not begin rallying until they got to Posen and upon the Oder.

Hitherto it was hardly possible for the King of Naples to regulate our flight any better; but at the moment he passed through Marienwerder on his way to Posen, a letter from Naples again unsettled all his resolutions. The impression which it made upon him was so violent, that by degrees as he read it, the bile mixed itself with his blood so rapidly, that he was found a few minutes after with a complete jaundice.

It appeared that an act of government which the queen had taken upon herself had wounded him in one of his strongest passions. He was not at all jealous of that princess, notwithstanding her charms, but furiously so of his royal authority; and it was particularly of the queen, as sister of the Emperor, that he was suspicious.

Persons were astonished at seeing this prince, who had hitherto appeared to sacrifice every thing to glory in arms, suffering himself to be mastered all at once by a less noble passion; but they forgot that, with certain characters, there must be always a ruling passion.

Besides, it was still the same ambition under different forms, and always entering completely into each of them; for such are passionate characters. At that moment his jealousy of his authority triumphed over his love of glory; it made him proceed rapidly to Posen, where, shortly after his arrival, he disappeared, and abandoned us.

This defection took place on the 16th of January, twenty-three days before Schwartzenberg detached himself from the French army, of which Prince Eugene took the command.

Alexander arrested the march of his troops at Kalisch. There, the violent and continued war, which had followed us all the way from Moscow, slackened: it became only, until the spring, a war of fits, slow and intermittent. The strength of the evil appeared to be exhausted; but it was merely that of the combatants; a still greater struggle was preparing, and this halt was not a time allowed to make peace, but merely given to the premeditation of slaughter.



CHAP. XII.

Thus did the star of the North triumph over that of Napoleon. Is it then the fate of the South to be vanquished by the North? Cannot that subdue it in its turn? Is it against nature that that aggression should be successful? and is the frightful result of our invasion a fresh proof of it?

Certainly the human race does not march in that direction; its inclination is towards the south, it turns its back to the north; the sun attracts its regards, its wishes, and its steps. We cannot with impunity turn back this great current of men; the attempt to make them return, to repel them, and confine them within their frozen regions, is a gigantic enterprise. The Romans exhausted themselves by it. Charlemagne, although he rose when one of these great invasions was drawing to a termination, could only check it for a short time; the rest of the torrent, driven back to the east of the empire, penetrated it through the north, and completed the inundation.

A thousand years have since elapsed; the nations of the north have required that time to recover from that great migration, and to acquire the knowledge which is now indispensable to a conquering nation. During that interval, it was not without reason that the Hanse Towns opposed the introduction of the warlike arts into the immense camp of the Scandinavians. The event has justified their fears. Scarcely had the science of modern war penetrated among them, when Russian armies were seen on the Elbe, and shortly after in Italy; they came to reconnoitre these countries, some day they will come and settle there.

During the last century, either from philanthropy or vanity, Europe was eager in contributing to civilize these men of the north, of whom Peter had already made formidable warriors. She acted wisely, in so far as she diminished for herself the danger of falling back into fresh barbarism; if we allow that a second relapse into the darkness of the middle ages is possible, war having become so scientific, that mind predominates in it, so that to succeed in it, a degree of instruction is required, which nations that still remain barbarous can only acquire by civilization.

But, in hastening the civilization of these Normans, Europe has probably hastened the epoch of their next invasion. For let no one believe that their pompous cities, their exotic and forced luxury, will be able to retain them; that by softening them, they will be kept stationary, or rendered less formidable. The luxury and effeminacy which are enjoyed in spite of a barbarous climate, can only be the privilege of a few. The masses, which are incessantly increasing by an administration which is gradually becoming more enlightened, will continue sufferers by their climate, barbarous like that, and always more and more envious; and the invasion of the south by the north, recommenced by Catherine II. will continue.

Who is there that can fancy that the great struggle between the North and the South is at an end? Is it not, in its full grandeur, the war of privation against enjoyment, the eternal war of the poor against the rich, that which devours the interior of every empire?

Comrades, whatever was the motive of our expedition, this was the point which made it of importance to Europe. Its object was to wrest Poland from Russia, its result would have been to throw the danger of a fresh invasion of the men of the north, at a greater distance, to weaken the torrent, and oppose a new barrier to it; and was there ever a man, or a combination of circumstances, so well calculated to ensure the success of so great an enterprise?

After fifteen hundred years of victories, the revolution of the fourth century, that of the kings and nobles against the people, was, in its turn, vanquished by the revolution of the nineteenth century, that of the people against the nobles and kings. Napoleon was born of this conflagration; he obtained such complete power over it, that it seemed as if that great convulsion had only been that of the bringing into the world one man. He commanded the Revolution as if he had been the genius of that terrible element. At his voice she became tranquil. Ashamed of her excesses, she admired herself in him, and precipitating herself into his glory, she had united Europe under his sceptre, and obedient Europe rose at his call to drive back Russia within her ancient limits. It seemed as if the North was in his turn about to be vanquished, even among his own ices.

And yet this great man, with these great circumstances in his favour, could not subdue nature! In this powerful effort to re-ascend that rapid declivity, so many forces failed him! After reaching these icy regions of Europe, he was precipitated from their very summit. The North, victorious over the South in her defensive war, as she had been in the middle ages in her offensive one, now believes herself invulnerable and irresistible.

Comrades, believe it not! Ye might have triumphed over that soil and these spaces, that climate, and that rough and gigantic nature, as ye had conquered its soldiers.

But some errors were punished by great calamities! I have related both the one and the other. On that ocean of evils I have erected a melancholy beacon of gloomy and blood-red light; and if my feeble hand has been insufficient for the painful task, at least I have exhibited the floating wrecks, in order that those who come after us may see the peril and avoid it.

Comrades, my task is finished; it is now for you to bear your testimony to the truth of the picture. Its colours will no doubt appear pale to your eyes and to your hearts, which are still full of these great recollections. But which of you is ignorant that an action is always more eloquent than its description; and that if great historians are produced by great men, the first are still more rare than the last?

Volume I

London: Printed by Thomas Davison, Whitefriars.

Volume II

London: Printed by C. Roworth. Bell yard, Temple Bar.

Transcriber's Notes:

This was a book of two volumes, written by a Frenchman and printed in English by different printers. As a result there was a wide variation in spelling.

Original spelling was retained except where noted.

Thus corses for corpses, tressels for trestles, Dantzic for Danzig.

Table of Contents, Volume II, Book IX, Chapter II, Jaroslavetz changed to Yaroslawetz to conform to text. Also for Chapters IV and V of same.

Table of Contents, Winkowo changed to Vinkowo to conform to much of text.

Table of Contents, Doubrowna changed to Dombrowna.

The use of Chap. and Chapter was retained reflecting the original work.

Book II. Chap. II., Arriere changed to Arriere.

Book V. Chap. I, Duenaburg changed to Duenabourg to match rest of Volume.

Book VIII. Chapter XI, Francaise changed to Francaise.

Book X. Chapter III, Karsnoe changed to Krasnoe.

One instance each of Yuknow, Yuknof and Yucknow appears in the text as does Vilkomir/Wilkomer and Doukhowtchina/Dukhowtchina.

Differences that were retained between Volumes I and II: Volume I Volume II Saint-Cyr Saint Cyr(also in Table of Contents for Vol. II) Oudinot Oudinot journeys journies Dubrowna Dombrowna Duenabourg Duenaburg

THE END