Napoleon's Campaign in Russia, Anno 1812; Medico-Historical Part 10

With nightfall some calm came over this place of carnage and confusion.

On the next morning Napoleon had to recommence, this time not to retreat, but to flee; he had to wrest from the enemy the 5 thousand men of Marshal Victor's corps, Victor's artillery and as many as possible of those unfortunates who had not employed the two days by crossing. Napoleon ordered Marshal Victor to cross during the night with his corps and with all his artillery, and to take with him as many as possible of the disbanded and of the refugees who were still on that other side of the river.

Here we now learn of a singular flux and reflux of the frightened ma.s.ses.

While the cannon had roared, every one wanted to cross but could not, now when with nightfall the firing had ceased they did not think any more of the danger of hesitation, not of the cruel lesson which they had learned during the day. They only wanted to keep away from the scene of horror which the crossing of the bridge had presented. It was a great task to force these unfortunates to cross the bridges before they were set on fire, a measure which was an absolute necessity and which was to be executed on the next morning.

The first work for Eble's pontooneers was now to clear the avenues of the bridges from the ma.s.s of the dead, men and horses, of demolished wagons, and of all sorts of impediments. This task could be accomplished only in part; the ma.s.s of cadavers was too great for the time given for the removal of all of them, and those who crossed had to walk over flesh and blood.

In the night, from 9 o'clock to midnight, Marshal Victor crossed the Beresina, thereby exposing himself to the enemy, who, however, was too tired to think of fighting. He brought his artillery over the left bridge, his infantry over the right one, and with the exception of the wounded and two pieces of artillery, all his men and all his material safely reached the other side. The crossing accomplished, he erected a battery to hold the Russians in check and to prevent them from crossing the bridges.

There remained several thousand stragglers and fugitives on this side of the Beresina who could have crossed during the night but had refused to do so. Napoleon had given orders to destroy the bridges at daybreak and had sent word to General Eble and Marshal Victor to employ all means in order to hasten the pa.s.sage of those unfortunates. General Eble, accompanied by some officers, himself went to their bivouacs and implored them to flee, emphasizing that he was going to destroy the bridges. But it was in vain; lying comfortably on straw or branches around great fires, devouring horse meat, they were afraid of the crowding on the bridge during the night, they hesitated to give up a sure bivouac for an uncertain one, they feared that the frost, which was very severe, would kill them in their enfeebled condition.

Napoleon's orders to General Eble was to destroy the bridges at 7 o'clock in the morning of November 29th., but this n.o.ble man, as humane as he was brave, hesitated. He had been awake that night, the sixth of these vigils in succession, incessantly trying to accelerate the pa.s.sing of the bridge; with daybreak, however, there was no need any more to stimulate the unfortunates, they all were only too anxious now. They all ran when the enemy became visible on the heights.

Eble had waited till 8 o'clock when the order for the destruction of the bridges was repeated to him, and in sight of the approaching enemy it was his duty not to lose one moment. However, trusting to the artillery of Victor, he still tried to save some people. His soul suffered cruelly during this time of hesitation to execute an order the necessity of which he knew only too well. Finally, having waited until almost 9 o'clock when the enemy approached on the double quick, he decided with broken heart, turning his eyes away from the frightful scene, to set fire to the structures. Those unfortunates who were on the bridges threw themselves into the water, every one made a supreme effort to escape the Cossacks or captivity, which latter they feared more than death.

The Cossacks came up galloping, thrusting their lances into the midst of the crowd; they killed some, gathered the others, and drove them forward, like a herd of sheep, toward the Russian army. It is not exactly known if there were 6 thousand, 7 thousand or 8 thousand individuals, men, women, and children, who were taken by the Cossacks.

The army was profoundly affected by this spectacle and n.o.body more so than General Eble who, in devoting himself to the salvation of all, could well say that he was the savior of all who had not perished or been taken prisoner in the days of the Beresina. Of the 50 thousand, armed or unarmed, who had crossed there was not a single one who did not owe his life and liberty to him and his pontooneers. But the 400 pontooneers who had worked in the water, paid with their lives for this n.o.blest deed in the history of wars; they all died within a short time. General Eble survived his act of bravery only three weeks; he died in Koenigsberg on the 21st. day of December, 1812.

This is an incomplete sketch of the immortal event of the Beresina, full of psychological interest and therefore fit to be inserted in the medical history of Napoleon's campaign in Russia.

To a miraculous accident, the arrival of Corbineau, the n.o.ble devotedness of Eble, the desperate resistance of Victor and his soldiers, to the energy of Oudinot, Ney, Legrand, Maison, Zayonchek, Doumerc, and, finally, to his own sure and profound decision, his recognition of the true steps to be taken, Napoleon owed the possibility that he could escape after a b.l.o.o.d.y scene, the most humiliating, the most crus.h.i.+ng disaster.

TWO EPISODES

Surgeon Huber of the Wuerttembergians, writes to his friend, Surgeon Henri de Roos, who settled in Russia after the campaign of 1812, how he crossed the Beresina, and in this connection he describes the following dreadful episode:

"A young woman of twenty-five, the wife of a French colonel killed a few days before in one of the engagements, was near me, within a short distance of the bridge we were to cross. Oblivious of all that went on about her, she seemed wholly engrossed in her daughter, a beautiful child of four, that she held in the saddle before her. She made several unsuccessful attempts to cross the bridge and was driven back every time, at which she seemed overwhelmed with blank despair. She did not weep; she would gaze heavenward, then fix her eyes upon her daughter, and once I heard her say: 'O G.o.d, how wretched I am, I cannot even pray!' Almost at the same moment a bullet struck her horse and another one penetrated her left thigh above the knee. With the deliberation of mute despair she took up the child that was crying, kissed it again and again; then, using the blood-stained garter removed from her fractured limb, she strangled the poor little thing and sat down with it, wrapped in her arms and hugged close to her bosom, beside her fallen horse. Thus she awaited her end, without uttering a single word, and before long she was trampled down by the riders making for the bridge."

The great surgeon Larrey tells how he nearly perished at the crossing of the Beresina, how he went over the bridge twice to save his equipment and surgical instruments, and how he was vainly attempting to break through the crowd on the third trip, when, at the mention of his name, every one proffered a.s.sistance, and he was carried along by soldier after soldier to the end of the bridge.

He has related the incident in a letter to his wife, dated from Leipzig, March 11th., 1813. "Ribes," says he--Ribes was one of Napoleon's physicians--"was right when he said that in the midst of the army, and especially of the Imperial guard, I could not lose my life. Indeed, I owe my life to the soldiers. Some of them flew to my rescue when the Cossacks surrounded me and would have killed or taken me prisoner. Others hastened to lift me and help me on when I sank in the snow from physical exhaustion.

Others, again, seeing me suffer from hunger, gave me such provisions as they had; while as soon as I joined their bivouac they would all make room and cover me with straw or with their own clothes."

At Larrey's name, all the soldiers would rise and cheer with a friendly respect.

"Any one else in my place," writes Larrey further, "would have perished on the bridge of the Beresina, crossing it as I was doing, for the third time and at the most dangerous moment. But no sooner did they recognize me than they grasped me with a vigorous hold, and sent me along from hand to hand, like a bundle of clothes, to the end of the bridge."

WILNA

The threatening barrier had been surmounted, and on went the march to Wilna, without any possibility of a day's rest, because the miserable remainder of the French army was still followed by light Russian troops.

During the first days after the crossing of the Beresina the supply of food had improved, it was better indeed than at any time during the retreat.

They pa.s.sed through villages which had not suffered from the war, in which the barns were well filled with grain and with feed for the horses, and there lived rich Jews who could sell whatever the soldiers needed.

Unfortunately, however, this improved condition lasted only a few days, from November 30th. to December 4th., and before Wilna was reached the want was felt again and made itself felt the more on account of the most intense cold which had set in.

During the few good days the soldiers had eaten roast pork, and all kinds of vegetables, in consequence their weakened digestive tract had been overtaxed so that diarrhoea became prevalent, a most frightful condition during a march on the road, with a temperature of 25 deg. below zero, Reaumur (about 25 deg. below zero, Fahrenheit).

The 6th. of December was a frightful day, although the cold had not yet reached its climax which happened on the 7th. and 8th. of December, namely 28 deg. below zero, Reaumur (31 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit).

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The Gate of Wilna."]

Holzhausen gives a graphic description of the supernatural silence which reigned and which reminded of the silence in the arctic regions. There was not the slightest breeze, the snowflakes fell vertically, crystal-clear, the snow blinded the eyes, the sun appeared like a red hot ball with a halo, the sign of greatest cold.

The details of the descriptions which Holzhausen has collected from old papers surpa.s.s by far all we have learned from von Scherer's and Beaupre's writings. And all that Holzhausen relates is verified by names of absolute reliability; it verifies the accounts of the two authors named.

General von Roeder, one of the n.o.blest of the German officers in Napoleon's army--a facsimile of one of his letters is given in Holzhausen's book--says about the murderous 7th. of December: "Pilgrims of the Grand Army, who had withstood many a severe frost indeed, dropped like flies, and of those who were well nourished, well clothed--many of these being of the reserve corps having but recently come from Wilna to join the retreating army,--countless numbers fell exactly like the old exhausted warriors who had dragged themselves from Moscow to this place."

The reserve troops of which Roeder speaks were the division Loison, the last great body of men that had followed the army. They had been in Koenigsberg and had marched from there to Wilna during the month of November, had remained in the latter place until December 4th., when they were sent to protect the retreating soldiers and the Emperor himself, on leaving the wreck of his once grand army at Smorgoni on December 5th.

These troops who thus far had not sustained any hards.h.i.+ps, came directly from the warm quarters of Wilna into the terrible cold.

It was quite frightful, says Roeder, to see these men, who a moment before had been talking quite lively, drop dead as if struck by lightning.

D. Geissler, a Weimaranian surgeon, renders a similar report and adds that in some cases these victims suffered untold agonies before they died.

Lieutenant Jacobs states that some said good bye to their comrades and laid down along the road to die, that others acted like maniacs, cursed their fate, fell down, rose again, and fell down once more, never to rise again.

Cases like the latter have been described also by First Lieutenant von Schauroth.

Under these circ.u.mstances, says Holzhausen, it appears almost incomprehensible that there were men who withstood a misery which surpa.s.sed all human dimensions. And still there were such; who by manfully bearing these sufferings, set to others a good example; there were whole troops who, to protect others in pertinacious rear guard fights, opposed the on-pressing enemy.

Wonderful examples of courage and self-denial gave some women, the wife of a Sergeant-Major Martens, who had followed the army, and a Mrs. Basler, who was always active, preparing some food while her husband with others was lying exhausted at the camp fire, and who seldom spoke, never complained.

This poor woman lost a son, a drummer boy, who had been wounded at Smolensk. She as well as her husband perished in Wilna.

Sergeant Toenges dragged a blind comrade along--I shall not leave him, he said. Grenadiers, sitting around a fire, had pity on him and tried to relieve his sufferings. Many such examples are enumerated in Holzhausen's book.

Our highest admiration is due to the conduct of the brave troops of the rear guard who fought the Russians, who sacrificed themselves for the sake of the whole, and, like at Krasnoe and at the Beresina, for their disbanded comrades.

The rearguard was at first commanded by Ney, then, after the 3rd. of December, by Marshal Victor; after the dissolution of Victor's corps at Smorgoni and Krapowna, by Loison and, finally, near Wilna, by Wrede with his Bavarians.

Count Hochberg has given a cla.s.sical description of the life in the rear guard; it is the most elevating description of greatness, of human magnanimity, and it fills us with admiration for the n.o.ble, the brave soldier.

Interesting is the engagement at Malodeszno. A certain spell hangs over this fight; here perished two Saxon regiments that had gloriously fought at the Beresina.

The scene was a romantic park with the castle of Count Oginsky where Napoleon had had his headquarters on the preceding day, and from where he dated his for ever memorable 29th. bulletin in which he told the world the ruin of his army.

Toward 2 o'clock in the afternoon the enemy attacked the division of Girard who was supported by Count Hochberg. Then the Russians attacked the park itself. The situation was very serious, because the Badensian troops under Hochberg had only a few cartridges and could not properly answer the fire of the enemy. Night came, and the darkness, writes a Badensian sergeant, was of great advantage to us, for the Russians stood against a very small number, the proportion being one battalion to 100 men. Count Hochberg led his brigade, attacking with the bayonet, and nearly became a victim of his courage. The Badensian troops drove the enemy away, but they themselves received the death blow. Count Hochberg said he had no soldiers left whom he could command.

And now it was the division Loison which formed the rear guard.