Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume III

THE RUSSIAN SOLDIERY.

These were exaggerations calculated for the meridian of Paris. Napoleon was himself sensible, that he was approaching a conflict of a different kind from that which he had maintained with Austria, and more lately against Prussia. The common soldier in both those services was too much levelled into a mere moving piece of machinery, the hundred-thousandth part of the great machine called an army, to have any confidence in himself, or zeal beyond the mere discharge of the task intrusted to him according to the word of command. These troops, however highly disciplined, wanted that powerful and individual feeling, which in armies possessing a strong national character, (by which the Russians are peculiarly distinguished,) induces the soldier to resist to the last moment, even when resistance can only assure him of revenge. They were still the same Russians, of whom Frederick the Great said, "that he could kill, but could not defeat them;" – they were also strong of constitution, and inured to the iron climate in which Frenchmen were now making war for the first time; – they were accustomed from their earliest life to spare nourishment and hardship; – in a word, they formed then, as they do now, the sole instance in Europe of an army, the privates of which are semi-barbarians, with the passions, courage, love of war, and devotion to their country, which is found in the earlier periods of society, while the education received by their superior officers places them on a level with those of any other nation. That of the inferior regimental officers is too much neglected; but they are naturally brave, kind to the common soldier, and united among themselves like a family of brothers, – attributes which go far to compensate the want of information. Among the higher officers, are some of the best informed men in Europe.

The Russian army was at this period deficient in its military staff, and thence imperfect in the execution of combined movements; and their generals were better accustomed to lead an army in the day of actual battle, than to prepare for victory by a skilful combination of previous manœuvres. But this disadvantage was balanced by their zealous and unhesitating devotion to their Emperor and their country. There scarcely existed a Russian, even of the lowest rank, within the influence of bribery; and an officer, like the Prussian commandant of Hamelen, who began to speculate upon retaining his rank in another service, when surrendering the charge intrusted to him by his sovereign, would have been accounted in Russia a prodigy of unexampled villany. In the mode of disciplining their forces, the Russians proceeded on the system most approved in Europe. Their infantry was confessedly excellent, composed of men in the prime of life, and carefully selected as best qualified for military service. Their artillery was of the first description, so far as the men, guns, carriages, and appointments were concerned; but the rank of General of Artillery had not the predominant weight in the Russian army, which ought to be possessed by those particularly dedicated to the direction of that arm, by which, according to Napoleon, modern battles must be usually decided. The direction of their guns was too often intrusted to general officers of the line. The service of cavalry is less natural to the Russians than that of the infantry, but their horse regiments are nevertheless excellently trained, and have uniformly behaved well.

COSSACKS – ACTION OF PULTUSK.

But the Cossacks are a species of force belonging to Russia exclusively; and although subsequent events have probably rendered every reader in some degree acquainted with their national character, they make too conspicuous a figure in the history of Napoleon, to be passed over without a brief description here.

The natives on the banks of the Don and the Volga hold their lands by military service, and enjoy certain immunities and prescriptions, in consequence of which each individual is obliged to serve four years in the Russian armies. They are trained from early childhood to the use of the lance and sword, and familiarized to the management of a horse peculiar to the country – far from handsome in appearance, but tractable, hardy, swift, and surefooted, beyond any breed perhaps in the world. At home, and with his family and children, the Cossack is kind, gentle, generous, and simple; but when in arms, and in a foreign country, he resumes the predatory, and sometimes the ferocious habits of his ancestors, the roving Scythians. As the Cossacks receive no pay, plunder is generally their object; and as prisoners were esteemed a useless encumbrance, they granted no quarter, until Alexander promised a ducat for every Frenchman whom they brought in alive. In the actual field of battle, their mode of attack is singular. Instead of acting in line, a body of Cossacks about to charge, disperse at the word of command, very much in the manner of a fan suddenly flung open, and, joining in a loud yell, or hourra, rush, each acting individually, upon the object of attack, whether infantry, cavalry, or artillery, to all of which they have been, in this wild way of fighting, formidable assailants. But it is as light cavalry that the Cossacks are perhaps unrivalled. They and their horses have been known to march one hundred miles in twenty-four hours without halting. They plunge into woods, swim rivers, thread passes, cross deep morasses, and penetrate through deserts of snow, without undergoing material loss, or suffering from fatigue. No Russian army, with a large body of Cossacks in front, can be liable to surprise; nor, on the other hand, can an enemy surrounded by them ever be confident against it. In covering the retreat of their own army, their velocity, activity and courage, render pursuit by the enemy's cavalry peculiarly dangerous; and in pursuing a flying enemy, these qualities are still more redoubtable. In the campaign of 1806-7, the Cossacks took the field in great numbers, under their celebrated Hettman, or Attaman, Platow, who, himself a Cossack, knew their peculiar capacity for warfare, and raised their fame to a pitch which it had not attained in former European wars.

The Russians had also in their service Tartar tribes, who in irregularity resembled the Cossacks, but were not to be compared with them in discipline or courage, being, in truth, little better than hordes of roving savages.

It remains only to be mentioned, that at this time the Russian commissariat was very indifferent, and, above all, deficient in funds. The funds of the Imperial treasury were exhausted, and an aid, amounting only to eighty thousand pounds, was obtained from England with difficulty. In consequence of these circumstances, the Russians were repeatedly, during the campaign, obliged to fight at disadvantage for want of provisions. – We return to the progress of the war.

On the 25th of December, the Russian army of Bennigsen, closely concentrated, occupied a position behind Pultusk; their left, commanded by Count Ostermann, resting upon the town, which is situated on the river Narew. A corps occupied the bridge, to prevent any attack from that point. The right, under Barclay de Tolly, was strongly posted in a wood, and the centre was under the orders of General Zachen. A considerable plain extended between the town of Pultusk and the wood, which formed the right of the Russian position. They had stationed a powerful advanced guard, had occupied the plain with their cavalry, and established a strong reserve in their rear. On the 26th, the Russian position was attacked by the French divisions of Lannes and Davoust, together with the French guards. After skirmishing some time in the centre, without making the desired impression, the battle appeared doubtful, when, suddenly assembling a great strength on their own left, the French made a decisive effort to overwhelm the Russians, by turning their right wing. The attack prevailed to a certain extent. The accumulated and superior weight of fire determined Barclay de Tolly to retreat on his reserves, which he did without confusion, while the French seized upon the wood, and took several Russian guns. But Bennigsen, in spite of Kaminskoy's order to retreat, was determined to abide the brunt of battle, and to avail himself of the rugged intrepidity of the troops which he commanded. Ordering Barclay de Tolly to continue his retreat, and thus throwing back his right wing, he enticed the French, confident in victory, to pursue their success, until the Russian cavalry, which had covered the manœuvre, suddenly withdrawing, they found themselves under a murderous and well-directed fire from one hundred and twenty guns, which, extending along the Russian front, played on the French advancing columns with the utmost success. The Russian line at the same time advanced in turn, and, pushing the enemy before them, recovered the ground from which they had been driven. The approach of night ended the combat, which had been both obstinate and bloody. The French lost near eight thousand men, killed and wounded, including General Lannes and five other general officers among the latter. The Russian loss amounted to five thousand. The French retreated after nightfall with such rapidity, that on the next day the Cossacks could not find a rear-guard in the vicinity of Pultusk.263

The action of Pultusk raised the reputation of Bennigsen, and the character as well as the spirits of the Russian army; but its moral effect on the soldiers was its only important consequence. Had Bennigsen been joined during the action by the division of Buxhowden or D'Anrep, of whom the former was only eight miles distant, the check might have been converted into a victory, highly influential on the issue of the campaign. But either the orders of Kaminskoy, or some misunderstanding, prevented either of these corps from advancing to support the efforts of Bennigsen. It became impossible for him, therefore, notwithstanding the advantages he had obtained, to retain his position at Pultusk, where he must have been surrounded. He accordingly fell back upon Ostrolenka, where he was joined by Prince Galitzin, who had been engaged in action at Golymin upon the day of the battle of Pultusk; had, like Bennigsen, driven back the enemy, and like him had retreated for the purpose of concentrating his forces with those of the grand army. The French evinced a feeling of the unusual and obstinate nature of the contest in which they had been engaged at Pultusk and Golymin. Instead of pressing their operations, they retreated into winter quarters; Napoleon withdrawing his guard as far as Warsaw,264 while the other divisions were cantoned in the towns to the eastward, but without attempting to realize the prophecies of the bulletins concerning the approaching fate of the Russian army.

The conduct of Kaminskoy began now to evince decided tokens of insanity. He was withdrawn from the supreme command, which, with the general approbation of the soldiers, was conferred upon Bennigsen. This general was not equal in military genius to Suwarrow, but he seems to have been well fitted to command a Russian army. He was active, hardy, and enterprising, and showed none of that peculiarly fatal hesitation, by which officers of other nations opposed to the French generals, and to Buonaparte in particular, seem often to have been affected, as with a sort of moral palsy, which disabled them for the combat at the very moment when it seemed about to commence. On the contrary, Bennigsen finding himself in a supreme command of ninety thousand men, was resolved not to wait for Buonaparte's onset, but determined to anticipate his motions; wisely concluding, that the desire of desisting from active operations, which the French Emperor had evinced by cantoning his troops in winter quarters, ought to be a signal to the Russians again to take the field.

ACTION OF MOHRUNGEN.

The situation of the King of Prussia tended to confirm that determination. This unfortunate monarch – well surely did Frederick William then deserve that epithet – was cooped up in the town of Königsberg, only covered by a small army of a few thousand men, and threatened by the gradual approach of the divisions of Ney and Bernadotte; so that the King's personal safety appeared to be in considerable danger. Graudentz, the key of the Vistula, continued indeed to hold out, but the Prussian garrison was reduced to distress, and the hour of surrender seemed to be approaching. To relieve this important fortress, therefore, and at the same time protect Königsberg, were motives added to the other reasons which determined Bennigsen to resume offensive operations. A severe and doubtful skirmish was fought near Mohrungen,265 in which the French sustained considerable loss. The Cossacks spread abroad over the country, making numerous prisoners; and the scheme of the Russian general succeeded so well, as to enable the faithful L'Estocq to relieve Graudentz with reinforcements and provisions.

By these daring operations, Buonaparte saw himself forced into a winter campaign, and issued general orders for drawing out his forces, with the purpose of concentrating them at Willenberg, in the rear of the Russians, (then stationed at Mohrungen,) and betwixt them and their own country. He proposed, in short, to force his enemies eastward towards the Vistula, as at Jena he had compelled the Prussians to fight with their rear turned to the Rhine. Bernadotte had orders to engage the attention of Bennigsen upon the right, and detain him in his present situation, or rather, if possible, induce him to advance eastward towards Thorn, so as to facilitate the operation he meditated.

The Russian general learned Buonaparte's intention from an intercepted despatch,266 and changed his purpose of advancing on Ney and Bernadotte. Marches and counter-marches took place, through a country at all times difficult, and now covered with snow. The experience and dexterity of the French secured some advantages; but these were fully counterbalanced by the daily annoyance and loss which they in turn sustained from Platow and his Cossacks. In cases where the French retreated, the Scythian lances were always on their rear; and when the Russians retired in turn, and were pursued by the French, with the same venturous spirit which they had displayed against others, the latter seldom failed to suffer for their presumption. There was found in the spearmen of the Don and Wolga a natural and instinctive turn for military stratagem, ambuscade, and sudden assault, which compelled the French light troops to adopt a caution, very different from their usual habits of audacity.

Bennigsen was aware that it was the interest of Russia to protract the campaign in this manner. He was near his reinforcements, the French were distant from theirs; every loss, therefore, told more in proportion on the enemy, than on his army. On the other hand, the Russian army, impatient of protracted hostilities, became clamorous for battle; for the hardships of their situation were such as to give them every desire to bring the war to a crisis. We have noticed the defects of the Russian Commissariat. They were especially manifest during those campaigns, when the leader was obliged more than once, merely from want of provisions, to peril the fate of the war upon a general battle, which prudence would have induced him to avoid. In those northern latitudes, and in the month of February, the troops had no resource but to prowl about, and dig for the hoards of provision concealed by the peasants. This labour, added to their military duty, left them scarcely time to lie down; and when they did so, they had no bed but the snow, no shelter but the wintry heaven, and no covering but their rags.267 The distresses of the army were so extreme, that it induced General Bennigsen, against his judgment, to give battle at all risks, and for this purpose to concentrate his forces at Preuss-Eylau, which was pitched on as the field on which he proposed to await Buonaparte.

BATTLE OF PREUSS-EYLAU.

In marching through Landsberg to occupy the selected ground, the Russian rear-guard was exposed to a serious attack by the French, and was only saved from great loss by the gallantry of Prince Bagration, who redeemed, by sheer dint of fighting, the loss sustained by want of conduct in defiling through the streets of a narrow village, while pursued by an enterprising enemy. The Russian army lost 3000 men. On the 7th February, the same gallant prince, with the Russian rear-guard, gained such decided advantages over the French van as nearly balanced the loss at Landsberg, and gave time for the whole army to march through the town of Preuss-Eylau, and to take up a position behind it. It had been intended to maintain the town itself, and a body of troops had been left for that purpose; but in the confusion attending the movement of so large an army, the orders issued had been misunderstood, and the division designed for this service evacuated the place so soon as the rear-guard had passed through it.

A Russian division was hastily ordered to re-occupy Preuss-Eylau. They found the French already in possession, and, although they dislodged them, were themselves driven out in turn by another division of French, to whom Buonaparte had promised the plunder of the town. A third division of Russians was ordered to advance; for Bennigsen was desirous to protract the contest for the town until the arrival of his heavy artillery, which joined him by a different route. When it came up, he would have discontinued the struggle for possession of Preuss-Eylau, but it was impossible to control the ardour of the Russian columns, who persevered in advancing with drums beating, rushed into the town, and surprising the French in the act of sacking it, put many of them to the bayonet, even in the acts of license which they were practising. Preuss-Eylau, however, proved no place of shelter. It was protected by no works of any kind; and the French, advancing under cover of the hillocks and broken ground which skirt the village, threw their fire upon the streets, by which the Russians sustained some loss. General Barclay de Tolly was wounded, and his forces again evacuated the town, which was once more and finally occupied by the French. Night fell, and the combat ceased, to be renewed with treble fury on the next day.

The position of the two armies may be easily described. That of Russia occupied a space of uneven ground, about two miles in length and a mile in depth, with the village of Serpallen on their left; in the front of their army lay the town of Preuss-Eylau, situated in a hollow, and in possession of the French. It was watched by a Russian division; which, to protect the Russian centre from being broken by an attack from that quarter, was strongly reinforced, though by doing so the right wing was considerably weakened. This was thought of the less consequence, that L'Estocq, with his division of Prussians, was hourly expected to join the Russians on that point. The French occupied Eylau with their left, while their centre and right lay parallel to the Russians, upon a chain of heights which commanded in a great measure the ground possessed by the enemy. They also expected to be reinforced by the division of Ney, which had not come up, and which was destined to form on the extreme left.

The space betwixt the hostile armies was open and flat, and intersected with frozen lakes. They might trace each other's position by the pale glimmer of the watch-lights upon the snow. The difference of numerical force was considerably to the advantage of the French. Sir Robert Wilson rates them at 90,000 men, opposed to 60,000 only; but the disproportion is probably considerably over-rated.268

The eventful action commenced with daybreak on the 8th of February. Two strong columns of the French advanced, with the purpose of turning the right, and storming the centre, of the Russians, at one and the same time. But they were driven back in great disorder by the heavy and sustained fire of the Russian artillery. An attack on the Russian left was equally unsuccessful. The Russian infantry stood like stone ramparts – they repulsed the enemy – their cavalry came to their support, pursued the retiring assailants, and took standards and eagles. About mid-day, a heavy storm of snow began to fall, which the wind drove right in the face of the Russians, and which added to the obscurity caused by the smoke of the burning village of Serpallen, that rolled along the line.

Under cover of the darkness, six columns of the French advanced with artillery and cavalry, and were close on the Russian position ere they were opposed. Bennigsen, at the head of his staff, brought up the reserves in person, who, uniting with the first line, bore the French back at the point of the bayonet. Their columns, partly broken, were driven again to their own position, where they rallied with difficulty. A French regiment of cuirassiers, which, during this part of the action, had gained an interval in the Russian army, were charged by the Cossacks, and found their defensive armour no protection against the lance. They were all slain except eighteen.269

At the moment when victory appeared to declare for the Russians, it was on the point of being wrested from them. Davoust's division had been manœuvring since the beginning of the action to turn the left, and gain the rear, of the Russian line. They now made their appearance on the field of battle with such sudden effect, that Serpallen was lost, the Russian left wing, and a part of their centre, were thrown into disorder, and forced to retire and change their front, so as to form almost at right angles with the right, and that part of the centre which retained their original position.

At this crisis, and while the French were gaining ground on the rear of the Russians, L'Estocq, so long expected, appeared in his turn suddenly on the field, and, passing the left of the French, and the right of the Russians, pushed down in three columns to redeem the battle on the Russian centre and rear. The Prussians, under that loyal and gallant leader, regained in this bloody field their ancient military reputation. They never fired till within a few paces of the enemy, and then used the bayonet with readiness and courage. They redeemed the ground which the Russians had lost, and drove back in their turn the troops of Davoust and Bernadotte, who had been lately victorious.

Ney, in the meanwhile, appeared on the field, and occupied Schloditten, a village on the road to Königsberg. As this endangered the communication of the Russians with that town, it was thought necessary to carry it by storm – a gallant resolution, which was successfully executed.270 This was the last act of the bloody day. It was ten o'clock at night, and the combat was ended.271

Fifty thousand men perished in this dreadful battle – the best contested in which Buonaparte had yet engaged, and by far the most unsuccessful. He retired to the heights from which he had advanced in the morning, without having gained one point for which he had struggled, and after having suffered a loss considerably greater than that which he had inflicted on the enemy. But the condition of the Russian army was also extremely calamitous. Their generals held a council of war upon the field of battle, and without dismounting from their horses. The general sentiment which prevailed among them was, a desire to renew the battle on the next day, at all hazards. Tolstoy undertook to move forward on the French lines – L'Estocq urged the same counsel. They offered to pledge their lives, that, would Bennigsen advance, Napoleon must necessarily retire; and they urged the moral effect which would be produced, not on their army only, but on Germany and on Europe, by such an admission of weakness on the part of him who had never advanced but to victory. But Bennigsen conceived that the circumstances of his army did not permit him to encounter the hazard of being cut off from Königsberg, and endangering the person of the King of Prussia; or that of risking a second general action, with an army diminished by at least 20,000 killed and wounded, short of ammunition, and totally deprived of provisions. The Russians accordingly commenced their retreat on Königsberg that very night. The division of Count Ostermann did not move till the next morning, when it traversed the field in front of Preuss-Eylau, without the slightest interruption from the French, who still occupied the town.272

The battle of Preuss-Eylau was claimed as a victory by both parties, though it was very far from being decided in favour of either. Bennigsen had it to boast, that he had repelled the attacks of Buonaparte along the whole of his line, and that the fighting terminated unfavourably to the French. He could also exhibit the unusual spectacle of twelve imperial eagles of France, taken in one action. For many days after the battle, also, the Cossacks continued to scour the country, and bring into Königsberg great numbers of French prisoners. On the other hand, the subsequent retreat of the Russians was interpreted by the French into an acknowledgment of weakness; and they appealed to their own possession of the field of battle, with the dead and wounded, as the usual testimonials of victory.