Napoleon's Campaign in Russia, Anno 1812; Medico-Historical Part 3

After Smolensk had been evacuated by the Russians, most houses had been burnt out; the retreating Russians had destroyed everything that could be of any use. Corpses everywhere. n.o.body had time to remove them, and the cannons, the freight wagons, the horses, and the infantry pa.s.sed over them.

On August 17th and 18th, was the battle of Polotsk in which the Bavarians distinguished themselves. There were no medicines for the wounded, not even drinking water, no bread, no salt. Of the many unhealthy places in Russia this is the worst, it swarms with insects. Nostalgia was prevailing. They had a so-called dying chamber in the hospital for which the soldiers were longing, to rest there on straw, never to rise again.

Awaiting their last the pious Bavarians repeated aloud their rosary, took refuge with the Jesuits, who had a convent at Polotsk, to receive the consolation of their religion.

Some thought Napoleon would rest here to establish the Polish kingdom. But this reasonable idea, if he had ever entertained it, he discarded. By giving his troops winter quarters, establis.h.i.+ng magazines and hospitals he would have succeeded in subduing Russia by reinforcing his army; instead of all this he went on to Moscow without provisions, without magazines.

On August 30, the army reached Wiasma, a city of 8 thousand or 9 thousand inhabitants which had been set on fire upon the approach of the French. All the inhabitants had left. The soldiers fought the flames and saved some houses into which they brought those of their wounded and sick who could not drag themselves any farther. Cases of typhus were numerous. From Wiasma the army marched to Ghiat, a city of 6 thousand or 7 thousand inhabitants; at this place Napoleon gave a two days' rest in order that the army could rally, clean their arms and prepare for battle (the battle of Borodino on September 7. This battle is known under three names: the Russians have called it after the village of Borodino, of 200 inhabitants, near the battlefield and have now erected a monument there, a collonade crowned with a cross; some historians have called it the battle of Moshaisk, after a nearby town of 4 thousand inhabitants, and Napoleon has named it the battle of the Moskwa, after a river near the battlefield.) Napoleon had only 120 thousand to 130 thousand under arms, about as many as the Russians. It was 6:30 a.m., a beautiful sunrise. Napoleon called it the sun of Austerlitz.

The Russian generals made their soldiers say their prayers. A French cannon gave the signal to attack, and at once the French batteries opened the battle with a discharge of more than 100 cannon. Writing this medical history of the Russian campaign I feel tempted to give a description of this most frightful, most cruel of all battles in the history of the world in which about 1,200 cannon without interruption dealt destruction and death; fracas and tumult of arms of all kinds, the harangue, the shouts of the commanders, the cries of rage, the lamentations of the wounded, all blended into one terrible din. Both armies charged with all the force that terror could develop. French and Russian soldiers not only fought like furious lions rivaling each other in ardor and courage, but they fought with wild joy, devoid of all human feeling, like maniacs; they threw themselves on the enemy where he was most numerous, in a manner which manifested the highest degree of despair. The French had to gain the victory or succ.u.mb to misery; victory or death was their only thought. The Russians felt themselves humiliated by the approach of the French to their capital, and unshaken as a rock they resisted, defending themselves with grim determination. The battle, Napoleon promised, would be followed by peace and good winter quarters, but he was not as good a prophet as he was a good general.

During the day the Westphalian corps was reduced to 1500 men. Napoleon ordered these to do guard-duty on the battlefield, transport the immense number of wounded to the hospitals, bury the dead and to remain while the army marched and stayed at Moscow. What the Westphalians could do for the wounded was very little, for everything was wanting. The hospital system was incomplete, miserable. It is true, the surgeons dressed, operated, amputated, during the battle and during the days following, a great many wounded, but their number and their a.s.sistance was inadequate for the enormous task; thousands remained without proper attendance and died.

About one thousand Wuerttembergians were wounded in the battle of Borodino, and on many of these surgical operations had to be performed. Strange to say, the greatest operations on enfeebled wounded were more successful, a great many more were saved, than was generally the case under more favorable circ.u.mstances. Thus Surgeon General von Kohlreuter observed that in the Russian campaign amputation of an arm, for instance, gave much better chances, more recoveries, than in the Saxon and French campaigns, during which latter the soldiers were still robust, well nourished and well, even in abundance, supplied with everything.

Means of transportation were lacking, for no wagons could be found in the deserted villages, and for this reason many whose wounds had been dressed had to be left to their fate--to die. Those but slightly wounded and those even who could crawl in some manner followed the troops, or went back at random to find their death in some miserable hut. Many sought refuge in nearby villages, sometimes miles away from the battle-field, there to fall into the hands of the Cossacks.

The Westphalians remained on the battle-field surrounded by corpses and dying men, and they were forced to change position from time to time on account of the stench. The scenes of suffering and distress which the battle-field presented everywhere surpa.s.sed all description; the groans of the mutilated and dying followed the men on guard even at a distance, and especially was this terrible during the night; it filled the heart with horror, von Borcke said that soldiers, at the request of some of the wounded in extreme agony, shot them dead and turned the face away while shooting. And soon they considered this an act of pity. The officers even induced them to look for those who could not be saved, in order to relieve them from their suffering. When von Borcke was riding on horseback over the battle-field on the 5th. day after the battle he saw wounded soldiers lying alongside the cadaver of a horse, gnawing at its flesh. During the night flames could be seen here and there on this field of death; these were fires built by wounded soldiers who had crawled together to protect themselves from the cold of the night and to roast a piece of horseflesh.

On September 12th. the Westphalians moved to Moshaisk, which was deserted by all inhabitants, plundered, and half in ashes. While the battle raged several thousand wounded Russians had taken refuge there, who now, some alive and some dead, filled all the houses of the town. Burnt bodies were lying in the ruins of the houses which had been burnt, the entrance of these places being almost blockaded by cadavers. The only church, which stood on the public square in the middle of the town, contained several hundred wounded and as many corpses of men dead for a number of days. One glance into this infected church, a regular pest-house, made the blood curdle. Surgeons went inside and had the dead piled up on the square around the church; those still alive and suffering received the first aid, order was established and gradually a hospital arranged. Soldiers, Westphalians as well as Russian prisoners, were ordered to remove the corpses from the houses and the streets, and then a recleansing of the whole town was necessary before it could be occupied by the troops. Although there was only one stone building--and a hundred wooden ones--it gave quarters to the whole Westphalian corps. Two regiments, one of Hussars, the other of the light Horse Guards, both together numbering not more than 300 men, had taken possession of a monastery in the neighborhood. Two regiments of cuira.s.siers had marched with the French to Moscow.

In the quarters of Moshaisk the Westphalians enjoyed a time of rest, while the events in Moscow took place. The fate of those who had remained in Moshaisk was not enviable, but what had been left of the town offered at least shelter during the cold nights of the approaching winter. This was a good deal after the fearful hards.h.i.+ps, and it contributed much toward the recuperation of the soldiers. Convalescents arrived daily, also such as had remained in the rear; a number of the slightly wounded were able for duty again, and in this manner the number of men increased to 4,500. Life in Moshaisk was a constant struggle for sustenance. There were no inhabitants, not even a single dog or any other living animal which the inhabitants had left behind. Some provisions found in houses or hidden somewhere benefitted only those who had discovered them. The place upon the whole was a desert for the hungry. Small detachments had to be sent out for supplies. At first this system proved satisfactory, and with what had been brought in from the vicinity regular rations could be distributed. But the instinct of self-preservation had become so predominating that every one thought only of himself. Officers would send men clandestinely for their own sake, and when this was discovered it ended in a fight and murder. Everyone was anxious to provide for himself individually, to be prepared for the coming winter. Sutlers and speculators went to Moscow to take advantage of the general pillage, to procure luxuries, like coffee, sugar, tea, wine, delicacies of all description. Notwithstanding the great conflagration at Moscow immense stores of all these things had come into the hands of the French, and this had an influence on Moshaisk, forty miles away from the metropolis, von Borke was fortunate enough to secure a supply of coffee, tea, and sugar, sufficient not only for himself, but also for some friends, and lasting even for some weeks on the retreat. But the supply of meat, and especially bread, was inadequate for the ma.s.s of soldiers. Ten days had elapsed when the situation of those in Moshaisk became grave again, namely, when communication with Moscow was cut off. Orderlies did not arrive, no more convalescents came, news could not be had, details of soldiers sent out for supplies were killed or taken prisoner by Cossacks. The retreat of the French army, the last act of the great drama, commenced.

While the Westphalians guarded the battle-field the army marched to Moscow, exhausted, starving, finding new sufferings every day. On the road from Moshaisk to Moscow they encountered frightful conditions in the villages which were filled with wounded Russians. These unfortunates, abandoned to cruel privations, dying as much from starvation as from their wounds, excited pity. The water even was scarce, and when a source was discovered it was generally polluted, soiled with all sorts of filth, infected by cadavers; but all this did not prevent the soldiers from drinking it with great avidity, and they fought among themselves to approach it. All these details have to be known before studying typhus in the grand army.

The description of diseases given by the physicians who lived a century ago is for us unsatisfactory; we cannot understand what they meant by their vague designating of hepat.i.tis, fibrous enteritis, diarrhoea and dysentery, peripneumonia, remittent and intermittent gastric fever, protracted nervous fever, typhus and synochus; there is no distinction made in any of the writings of that period between abdominal and exanthematic typhus.

However, before long physicians will discard much from our present medical onomatology that is ridiculous, absurd, incorrect, in short, unscientific, as, for instance, the designation typhoid fever.

Ebstein has pointed out all that is obscure to us in the reports of the physicians of the Russian campaign; for instance, that we cannot distinguish what is meant by the different forms of fever. According to the views of those times fever was itself a disease _per se_; when reaction was predominating it was called synocha, typhus when weakness was the feature, and in case of a combination of synocha and typhus it was called synochus, a form in which there was at first an inflammatory and later on a typhoid stage, but which form could not be distinguished exactly from typhus. From all the descriptions in the reports of the Russian campaign it can be deduced that many of the cases enumerated were of exanthematic typhus, notwithstanding that the symptomatology given is very incomplete, not to speak of the pathological anatomy. The only writer who has described necropsies is von Scherer. Some of the physicians speak only of the sick and the diseases, as Bourgeois, who says that on the march to Russia during the sultry weather the many cadavers of horses putrefied rapidly, filling the air with miasms, and that this caused much disease; further, in describing the retreat he only says that the army was daily reduced in consequence of the constant fighting, the privations and diseases, without enumerating which diseases were prevailing; only in a note attached to his booklet he mentions that the most frequent of the ravaging diseases of that time and during the Russian campaign in general was typhus, and there can be no doubt it was petechial or exanthematic typhus, for which the English literature has the vague name typhus fever.

Very interesting are the historical data given by Ebstein: "As is well known, the fourth and most severe typhus period of the eighteenth century began with the wars of the French revolution and ended only during the second decade of the nineteenth century with the downfall of the Napoleonic empire and the restoration of peace in Germany." During the Russian campaign the conditions for spreading the disease were certainly the most favorable imaginable.

Krantz, whom I shall quote later on, has described the ophthalmy prevailing in York's corps as being of a mild character.

Quite different forms reigned among the soldiers on their retreat from Moscow.

The description of the death from frost given by von Scherer is similar to that given by Bourgeois. The men staggered as if drunk, their faces were red and swollen, it looked as if all their blood had risen into their head.

Powerless they dropped, as if paralyzed, the arms were hanging down, the musket fell out of their hands. The moment they lost their strength tears came to their eyes, repeatedly they arose, apparently deprived of their senses, and stared shy and terror-stricken at their surroundings. The physiognomy, the spasmodic contractions of the muscles of the face, manifested the cruel agony which they suffered. The eyes were very red, and drops of blood trickled from the conjunctiva. Without exaggeration it could be said of these unfortunates that they shed b.l.o.o.d.y tears. These severe forms of ophthalmy caused by extreme cold would have ended in gangraene of the affected parts if death had not relieved the misery of these unfortunates.

But Bourgeois describes another very severe form of ophthalmy among the soldiers which caused total blindness. It appeared when the army on its retreat was in the vicinity of Orscha, attacked many soldiers and resembled the ophthalmy which was prevailing in Egypt; there it was caused by the heated sand reflecting powerfully the rays of the sun; here, by the glaring white snow likewise reflecting the rays of the sun. Bourgeois considers as predisposing moments the smoke of the camp-fires, the want of sleep, the marching during the night, and describes the affection as follows: The conjunctiva became dark red, swelled together with the eyelids; there was a greatly exaggerated lachrymal secretion a.s.sociated with severe pain; the eyes were constantly wet, the photophobia reached such a degree that the men became totally blind, suffered most excruciating pain and fell on the road.

Ebstein availed himself of the publications of J. L. R. de Kerckhove, Rene Bourgeois, J. Lemazurier, and Joh. von Scherer, and the ma.n.u.script of Harnier from which writings he collected all that refers to the diseases of the grand army. It may not be out of place to quote the interesting writings of de Kerckhove concerning the army physicians and Napoleon and his soldiers:

De Kerckhove left Mayence on March 6th., 1812, attached to the headquarters of the 3rd. corps, commanded by Ney; at Thorn he joined those braves with whom he entered Moscow on September 14th. and with whom he left on October 19th. When he returned to Berlin in the beginning of February, 1813, the 3rd. corps was discharged. He writes: The army was not only the most beautiful, but there was none which included so many brave warriors, more heroes. How many parents have cried over the loss of their children tenderly raised by them, how many sons, the only hope and support of their father and mother, have perished, how many bonds of friends.h.i.+p have been severed, how many couples have been separated forever, how many unfortunate ones drawn into misery? An army extinguished by hunger and cold!

Giving credit to the physicians and surgeons who took part in that unfortunate expedition he says: With what n.o.ble zeal they tried to do their duties. The horror of the privations, the severity of the climate and fatigues and the want of eatables and medicines which characterized the hospitals and ambulances in Russia, have not discouraged the physicians so far as to become indifferent to the terrible fate reserved for the sick. On the contrary, far from allowing themselves to relax, they have doubled their activity to ameliorate sufferings. We have seen physicians in the midst of the carnage and the terror of the battles extend their care and bring consolation; we have seen them sacrificing day and night in hospital service, succ.u.mbing to murderous epidemics; in one word, despising all danger when it was a question of relieving the sufferings of the warriors, immaterial whether Russian or French. We can speak of many sick or wounded left in ambulances or hospitals in want of food and medicines, many of such unfortunates deprived of everything, dragging themselves under the ruins of cities or villages, who found help from honest physicians.

THE GRAND ARMY IN MOSCOW

Three fifths of the houses and one half of the churches were destroyed. The citizens had burned their capital. Before this catastrophe of 1812 Moscow was an aristocratic city. According to old usage, the Russian n.o.bility spent the winter there, they came from their country seats with hundreds of slaves and servants and many horses; their palaces in the city were surrounded by parks and lakes, and many buildings were erected on the grounds, as lodgings for the servants and slaves, stables, magazines. The number of servants was great, many of them serving for no other purpose than to increase the number, and this calling was part of the luxury of the n.o.blemen. The house of the seigneur was sometimes of brick, rarely of stone, generally of wood, all were covered with copper plates or with iron, painted red or green. The magazines were mostly stone buildings, on account of the danger of fire. At that time the Russian n.o.bility had not yet accustomed itself to consider St. Petersburg the capital, they were obstinate in the determination to come every winter to hold court in the mother of Russian cities. The conflagration of 1812 broke this tradition.

The n.o.bility, not willing or not being able to rebuild their houses, rented the ground to citizens, and industry, prodigiously developing since then, has taken possession of Moscow. This is how the city has lost its floating population of n.o.blemen and serfs, which amounted to 100 thousand souls, and how the aristocratic city has become an industrial one. It is a new city, but the fire of 1812, from the ashes of which it has risen, has left impressions on the monuments. Step by step in the Kremlin and in the city proper are found souvenirs of the patriotic war. You enter the Kremlin which Napoleon tried to explode, and which has been restored, you visit there the church of the Annunciation, and you will be told that the French soldiers had stabled their horses on the pavement of agate; you visit the church of the a.s.sumption and you will be shown the treasures which, on the approach of the French, had been taken to places of safety; you raise your eye to the summit of the tower of Ivan and you learn that the cross had been removed by the invaders and found in the baggage of the Grand Army. The door of St. Nicholas has an inscription recalling the miracle by which this door was saved in 1812. The tower surmounting it was split by an explosion from above downward, but the fissure ended at the very point where the icon is found; the explosion of 500 pounds of powder did not break even the gla.s.s which covers the image or the crystal of the lamp which burns before it. Along the walls of the a.r.s.enal are the cannon taken from the enemy, and in the a.r.s.enal are other trophies, including the camp-bed of Napoleon.

Russian accounts from eye-witnesses of the conflagration are few--in fact, there exists none in writing. People who witnessed the catastrophe could not write. What we possess are collections from verbal accounts given by servants, serfs, who had told the events to their masters. n.o.body of distinction had remained in Moscow, none of the n.o.bility, the clergy, the merchants. The persons from whom the following accounts are given were the nun Antonine, a former slave of the Syraxine family, the little peddler Andreas Alexieef, a woman, Alexandra Alexievna Nazarot, an old slave of the family Soimonof by the name of Basilli Ermolaevitch, the wife of a pope, Maria Stepanova, the wife of another pope, Helene Alexievna. A Russian lady has collected what she had learned from these humble people, the eye-witnesses of the catastrophe, and published it, pseudonym, in some Russian journal. All these people had minutely narrated their experiences to her at great length, not omitting any detail which concerned themselves or circ.u.mstances which caused their surprise, and they all gave the dates, the hours which they had tenaciously kept in their memory for sixty years, for it was in the year 1872 when the Russian lady interrogated them. Some had retained from those days of terror such vivid impressions that a conflagration or the sight of a soldier's casque would cause them palpitation of the heart. There is much repet.i.tion in their narrations, for all had seen the same: the invasion, the enemy, the fire kindled by their own people, the misery, the dearth, the pillage. There exist doc.u.ments of the events in Moscow of 1812, the souvenirs of Count de Toll, the apology of Rostopchine, which we shall come to in another chapter, the recitals of Domerque, of Wolzogen, of Segur, but these reminiscences of people in Moscow are the only ones from persons who actually suffered by the catastrophe, and they are in their way as valuable as the writings of our two writers, von Scherer and von Borcke.

These plain people know nothing of the days of Erfurt, nothing of the continental blocus, nothing of the withdrawal of Alexander from the French Alliance; the bearers of the toulloupes (sheepskin furs) in the streets of Moscow of the beginning of 1812 knew nothing of the confederation of the Rhine; all they knew of Bonaparte was that he had often beaten the Germans, and that on his account they had to pay more for sugar and coffee. To them the great comet of 1811 was the first announcement of coming great events. Let us see the reflections which the comet inspired in the abbess of the Devitchi convent and the nun Antonine, and this will give us an idea of the mental condition of the latter, one of the narrators. "One evening," she relates, "we were at service in St.

John's church, when all of a sudden I noticed on the horizon a gerbe of resplendent flames. I cried out and dropped my lantern. Mother abbess came to me to learn what had caused my fright, and when she also had seen the meteor she contemplated a long time. I asked, Matouchka, what star is this?

She answered this is no star, this is a comet. I asked again what is a comet? I never had heard that word. The mother then explained to me that this was a sign from heaven which G.o.d had sent to foretell great misfortune. Every evening this comet was seen, and we asked ourselves what calamity this one might bring us. In the cells of the convent, in the shops of the city, the news, traveling as the crow flies, was heard that Bonaparte was leading against Russia an immense army, the like of which the world had never seen. Only the veterans of the battles of Austerlitz, Eylau, and Friedland could give some information, some details of the character of the invader. The direction which Napoleon took on his march left no doubt to any one that he would appear in Moscow. In order to raise the courage which was sinking they had the miraculous image of the Virgin conductrice brought from Smolensk, which place was to be visited by the French. This icon was exposed in the cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel, for veneration by the people. The abbess of our convent, who was from Smolensk, had a special devotion for this image, she went with all the nuns to salute the Protatrix. At St. Michael the Archangel there was a great crowd so that one hardly could stand, especially were there many women, all crying. When we, the nuns, began to push, to get near the image, one after the other in a line endlessly long, they looked upon us with impatience. One woman said: 'These soutanes should make room for us, it is not their husbands, it is our husbands', our sons' heads, which will be exposed to the guns.'"

Rostopchine tried his best to keep the population at peace by his original proclamations, which were pasted on all the walls and distributed broadcast. After Borodino he urged the people to take up arms, and he promised to be at the head of the men to fight a supreme battle on the Three Mountains. Meanwhile he worked to save the treasures of the church, the archives, the collections of precious objects in the government palaces. From the a.r.s.enal he armed the people. A tribune was erected from which the metropolitan addressed the mult.i.tude and made them kneel down to receive his blessing. Rostopchine stood behind the metropolitan and came forward after the priest had finished his ellocution, saying that he had come to announce a great favor of his majesty. As a proof that they should not be delivered unarmed to the enemy, his majesty permitted them to pillage the a.r.s.enal, and the people shouted: "Thanks, may G.o.d give to the Tzar many years to live!" This was a very wise idea of Rostopchine to have the a.r.s.enal emptied, a feat which he could not have accomplished in time in any other way. The pillage lasted several days and went on in good order.

The French had entered Moscow. The first word of Napoleon to Mortier, whom he had named governor of Moscow, was "no pillage!" But this point of honor had to be abandoned. The 100 thousand men who had entered were troops of the elite, but they came starving at the end of their adventurous expedition. During the first days they walked the streets in search of a piece of bread and a little wine. But little had been left in the cellars of the abandoned houses and in the bas.e.m.e.nts of the little shops, and with the conflagration there was almost nothing to be found. The Grand Army was starving as much almost as on the march. Dogs which had returned in considerable numbers to lament on the ruins of the houses of their masters were looked upon as precious venison. The uniforms were already in rags, and the Russian climate made itself felt. These poor soldiers, poorly clad, dying from starvation, were begging for a piece of bread, for linen or sheepskin, and, above all, for shoes. There was no arrangement for the distribution of rations; they had to take from wherever they could, or perish.

Napoleon established himself in the Kremlin, the generals in the mansions of the n.o.blemen, the soldiers in the taverns or private houses until the fire dislodged them. Napoleon, with a part of his staff, was obliged to seek refuge in the park Petrovski, the commanders took quarters wherever they could, the soldiers dispersed themselves among the ruins.

Supervision had become an impossibility. The men, left to themselves, naturally lost all discipline under these circ.u.mstances of deception and under so many provocations among a hostile population.

Notwithstanding all these conditions, they behaved well in general and to a great extent showed self-control and humanity toward the conquered. The example of pillage had been set by the Russians themselves. Koutouzof had commanded the destruction of the mansions. The slaves burned the palaces of their masters.

All eye-witnesses speak of the extreme dest.i.tution of the soldiers in regard to clothing after one month's stay in Moscow. Already at this time, even before the most terrible and final trials of the retreat which awaited them, one had to consider them lost. When they first took to woman's clothes or shoes or hats it was considered an amus.e.m.e.nt, a joke, but very soon a mantilla, a soutane, a veil became a precious object and n.o.body laughed at it when frozen members were wrapped in these garments. The greatest calamity was the want of shoes. Some soldiers followed women simply for the purpose of taking their shoes from them. A special chapter of horrors could be written on the sufferings of the soldiers on the retreat over ice and snow fields on account of the miserable supply of shoes.

At first Napoleon reviewed the regiments near the ponds of the Kremlin, and at the first reviews the troops marched proudly, briskly, with firm step, but soon they began to fail with astonis.h.i.+ng rapidity. They answered the roll of the drums calling them together, clad in dirty rags and with torn shoes, in fast diminis.h.i.+ng numbers. During the last weeks of their stay in Moscow many had reached the last stage of misery, after having wandered through the streets looking for a little bit of nourishment, dressed up as for a carnival, but without desire to dance, as one remarked in grim humor.

These were the men whose destination had brought them many hundreds of miles from home to the semi-Asiatic capital of the Ivans, who had been drinking in the glory and the joy of warriors, and who now died from hunger and cold, with their laurels still intact. Thanks to the authorized military requisitions and the excesses of the stragglers of the Grand Army, a desert had been made of the city before Napoleon had begun his retreat.

No more cattle, no provisions, and the inhabitants gone, camping with wife and children in the deepest parts of the forests. Those who had remained or returned to the villages, organized against marauders whom they received with pitchforks or rifles, and these peasants gave no quarter.

"The enemy appeared nearly every day in our village (Bogorodsic)," says Maria Stepanova, the wife of a pope, "and as soon as they were perceived all men took up arms; our cossacks charged them with their long sabers or shot them with their pistols, and behind the cossacks were running the peasants, some with axes, some with pitchforks. After every excursion they brought ten or more prisoners which they drowned in the Protka which runs near the village, or they fusilladed them on the prairie. The unfortunates pa.s.sed our windows, my mother and I did not know where to hide ourselves in order not to hear their cries and the report of the firearms. My poor husband, Ivan Demitovitch, became quite pale, the fever took him, his teeth chattered, he was so compa.s.sionate! One day the cossacks brought some prisoners and locked them up in a cart-house built of stone. They are too few, they said, it is not worth while to take any trouble about them now; with the next lot which we shall take we will shoot or drown them together. This cart-house had a window with bars. Peasants came to look at the prisoners and gave them bread and boiled eggs; they did not want to see them starving while awaiting death. One day when I brought them eatables I saw at the window a young soldier--so young! His forehead was pressed against the bars, tears in his eyes, and tears running down his cheeks. I myself began to cry, and even to-day my heart aches when I think of him. I pa.s.sed lepecheks through the bars and went away without looking behind me.

At that time came an order from the government that no more prisoners should be killed but sent to Kalouga. How we were contented!"

Many savageries have been committed by the low cla.s.s of Russians who had remained in Moscow. This is not surprising because these were of the most depraved of the population, including especially many criminals who had been set free to pillage and burn the city. "A little while before the French entered," tells the serf Soimonof, "the order had been given to empty all the vodka (whiskey) from the distilleries of the crown into the street; the liquor was running in rivulets, and the rabble drank until they were senselessly drunk, they had even licked the stones and the wooden pavement. Shouting and fighting naturally followed."

The really good people of Moscow had given proofs of high moral qualities, worthy of admiration, under the sad circ.u.mstances. Poor moujiks who had learned of the defeat of the Russians at Borodino said their place was no longer in a city which was to be desecrated by the presence of the enemy, and, leaving their huts to be burned down, their miserable belongings to be pillaged, they went on the highways at the mercy of G.o.d, disposed to march as long as their eyes could see before them. Others, running before the flames, carried their aged and sick on their shoulders, showing but one sentiment in their complete ruin, namely, absolute resignation to the will of G.o.d.

Some readers may say that the foregoing chapter does not give the medical history of the campaign. To these I wish to reply that it is impossible to understand the medical history without knowing the general conditions of the Grand Army, which were the cause of the death of hundreds of thousands of soldiers from cold and starvation.

ROSTOPCHINE

The conflagration of Moscow in 1812 and the fall of the French empire are two facts which cannot be separated, but to the name of Moscow is attached another name, that of Rostopchine. Count Fedor Wa.s.siljavitch Rostopchine is connected with one of the greatest events in universal history. He caused a crisis which decided the fate of Russia and arrested the march of ascending France by giving the death blow to Napoleon. The latter, in admitting that Rostopchine was the author of his ruin, meant him when he said, "one man less, and I would have been master of the world."

Until the year 1876 there existed a mystery around this man and his deed, a mystery which was deepened by Rostopchine himself when he published in 1823 a pamphlet ent.i.tled "The Truth about the Conflagration of Moscow," which did not give the truth but was a mystification.

Alexander Popof, a Russian Counselor of State, who made a special study of the history of the Russian campaign of Napoleon, has explored the archives of St. Petersburg, and his researches, the result of which he published in Russian in the year 1876, have brought to light all diplomacy had concealed about the events which led to the destruction of the Russian capital.