B009YBU18W EBOK (34 page)

One German soldier could hardly believe what he saw as he tramped up streets carpeted with human remains. ‘Like thousands of
others, I was marching along when, between two burnt-out houses, I saw a small orchard whose fruit had been carbonised, underneath the trees of which were five or six men who had been literally grilled,’ he wrote. ‘They must have been wounded men who had been laid out in the shade before the fire started. The flames had not touched them, but the heat had contracted their nerves and pulled up their legs. Their white teeth jutted from between their shrivelled lips and two large bloody holes marked the place where their eyes had been.’
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All this had a profound effect on the army. ‘It marched through these smouldering and bloodied ruins in good order with martial music and its habitual pomp, triumphant on these deserted ruins, and having nobody but itself as a witness to its glory!’ in the words of Ségur. ‘Spectacle without spectators, victory practically without fruit, bloody glory, of which the smoke which surrounded us, and which seemed to be our only conquest, was the only too faithful emblem!’
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The city was not in fact entirely deserted. A considerable number of the inhabitants had not managed to get away, and they cowered among the ruins or thronged the churches, which, being of brick and stone, were refuges from the fire. There were also thousands of wounded Russian soldiers, and as the French prepared to march into Smolensk a delegation from the city authorities came out to ask Napoleon to help take care of them. He detailed sixty physicians and medical staff to go into the city and organise hospitals.
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This was easier said than done. Several large buildings such as monasteries and warehouses were designated for the purpose and the wounded were brought in, but there were no beds or mattresses to lay them on, and it was days before straw could be found to place on the floor under them. The lightly wounded were laid side by side with the sick, and infection spread quickly as they lay sweating in what even Napoleon termed ‘dreadfully hot’ weather. The sheer numbers of the wounded meant that many were not dressed for a day or two, by which time supplies had run out. Surgeons were sewing up wounds with tow in lieu of thread and dressing them with strips torn from
their own uniforms and paper taken from the city archives. ‘Without medicines, without broth, without bread, without linen, without lint and even without straw, they had no other consolation as they lay dying other than the sympathy of their comrades,’ in the words of General Berthézène. Napoleon sent Duroc around the hospitals to give the wounded money, but while in Austria or Italy this would have meant they would have been able to procure food and other necessities for themselves, here they would be able to buy nothing, while the possession of the coins made them vulnerable to robbery and murder.
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‘That is the hideous side of war, the one to which I shall never grow accustomed,’ noted Captain Fantin des Odoards of the Grenadiers of the Guard as he walked through the city on the following day. ‘To see so much misery and not to be able to provide assistance is torture.’ Seasoned soldiers could not afford to dwell on such thoughts if they were to survive. General Dedem de Gelder, whose division bivouacked on the main square that night, did his best. ‘I spent the night on a very luxurious settee which the men had found in one of the neighbouring town houses,’ he recalled, and he dined on jam, stewed fruit, two fresh pineapples and some peaches. ‘I would have preferred a good soup, but in war, one eats what one finds.’
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Barclay had remained on the north bank of the Dnieper throughout the day of 18 August, holding the suburb on that side of the river and preventing the French attempts at rebuilding the burnt bridges. But that night he withdrew. As the road to Moscow ran for several miles along the north bank within range of French guns, he set a course that started in a northerly direction, gradually swinging round to rejoin the Moscow road at Lubino. So as to avoid encumbrance along the small country roads they would have to use, he divided his force in two. But this only complicated matters, as during the first stage of the withdrawal, on the night of 18 August, several units lost their way. Progress was slower than expected, with guns and supply wagons getting stuck at the crossing of the many streams dissecting the
roads. The inclines were so steep that in several places guns and heavy wagons rolled down, dragging their teams of horses and men to a nasty death at the bottom of a ravine, and in turn obstructing progress further.

In the meantime, Ney had repaired the bridge at Smolensk, crossed the river and started to advance down the Moscow road, while Junot had begun to cross further upstream, at Prudichevo. Fearing that they might reach it before his retreating men did, Barclay had sent General Pavel Alekseievich Tuchkov with a small force to Lubino to cover the point at which the wheeling Russian columns were to rejoin the Moscow road.

Ney, who began to move along the Moscow road in the morning, was checked by what he thought was a counterattack developing on his left flank. In fact it was Ostermann-Tolstoy’s division, which had got lost in the night, and after marching in a circle for ten hours reappeared outside Smolensk. Ney deployed against it, which gave Tuchkov some time, but soon the French were pushing the Russians back along the Moscow road.

On hearing of the fighting, Napoleon rode out to the scene. Assuming that this was no more than a rearguard action, he ordered Davout to back up Ney with one of his divisions. Together they pushed Tuchkov back, but he too was reinforced by other units and the timely arrival of Barclay himself, who rallied the troops and steadied the situation. Wilson was impressed by Barclay, who ‘seeing the extent of the danger to his column, galloped forward, sword in hand, at the head of his staff, orderlies, and rallying fugitives, and crying out, “Victory or death! we must preserve this post or perish!” by his energy and example reanimating all, recovered possession of the height, and thus under God’s favour the army was preserved!’
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The Russians took up strong positions at Valutina Gora. Junot with his Westphalians was actually behind their left wing, and could have taken them in the back, which indeed Napoleon ordered him to do. But the usually fearless Junot, who had been acting strangely and complaining of heat stroke, made a number of incoherent replies
and would not move, even when Murat galloped up in person to tell him to attack.

‘If we had attacked, the Russians would have been routed, so all of us, soldiers and officers, were eagerly awaiting the order to attack,’ wrote Lieutenant Colonel von Conrady, a Hessian in Junot’s corps. ‘Our ardour to go into battle was expressed vociferously, with whole battalions shouting that they wanted to advance, but Junot would not listen, and threatened those who were shouting with the firing squad … Grinding our teeth, we were reduced to the role of spectators, while honour and duty beckoned. Never was an opportunity to distinguish oneself more shamefully lost! Several officers and soldiers in my battalion wept with despair and shame.’
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There were by now some 20 to 30,000 Russians facing, and outflanked by, as many as 50,000 French. According to Barclay’s aide-de-camp Woldemar von Löwenstern, Tuchkov rode up and asked for permission to fall back, to which Barclay allegedly replied: ‘Return to your post and get yourself killed if you must, for if you fall back I shall have you shot!’ Aware that the fate of the Russian army was in his hands, he held on, but it was touch and go. At one point Yermolov,
who was watching, seized his aide-de-camp by the elbow. ‘Austerlitz!’ he whispered in horror.
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If the French had been able to defeat Tuchkov, they could have sliced through the middle of the Russian forces on the march, and these would have stood no chance. ‘Never had our army been in greater danger,’ Löwenstern later wrote. ‘The fate of the campaign and of the army should have been sealed on that day.’
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It was unlike Napoleon not to sense the reason behind the Russian stand, but at about five o’clock in the afternoon he left Ney to get on with it and rode back to Smolensk. ‘He seemed to be very annoyed, and broke into a gallop when he came up with us, whose acclamations appeared to importune him,’ noted an officer of the Legion of the Vistula who watched him ride by.
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Tuchkov stood his ground, and his men fought like lions. Ney’s divisions, supported by Davout’s Gudin division, also fought with dash and determination, and the battle developed into a massacre which only ceased when darkness fell. The field was strewn with seven to nine thousand French and nine thousand Russian dead and wounded, but the living lay down to sleep among them, too exhausted to build a camp.
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The following morning, Napoleon rode out to the scene. ‘The sight of the battlefield was one of the bloodiest that the veterans could remember,’ according to one of the Polish Chevau-Légers who escorted him.
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He took the salute of the troops drawn up on this field of death and proceeded to enact one of the rituals that made him such a brilliant leader of men. He had decreed that he would award the coveted eagle that topped the standards of regiments which had proved their valour to the 127th of the Line, made up largely of Italians, which had distinguished itself on the previous day. ‘This ceremony, imposing in itself, took on a truly epic character in this place,’ in the words of one witness. The whole regiment was drawn up as if on parade, the men’s faces still smeared with blood and blackened by smoke. Napoleon took the eagle from the hands of Berthier and, holding it aloft, told the men that it was to be their rallying
point, and that they must swear never to abandon it. When they had sworn the oath, he handed the eagle to the Colonel, who passed it to the Ensign, who in turn took it to the centre of the élite company, while the drummers delivered a deafening roll.

Napoleon then dismounted and walked over to the front rank. In a loud voice, he asked the men to give him the names of those who had particularly distinguished themselves in the fighting. He then promoted those named to the rank of lieutenant, and bestowed the Légion d’Honneur to others, giving the accolade with his sword and giving them the ritual embrace. ‘Like a good father surrounded by his children, he personally bestowed the recompense on those who had been deemed worthy, while their comrades acclaimed them,’ in the words of one officer. ‘Watching this scene,’ wrote another, ‘I understood and experienced that irresistible fascination which Napoleon exerted when he wanted to, and wherever he was.’
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By this extraordinary ceremony, Napoleon managed to turn the bloody battlefield into a field of triumph, sending those who had died to immortality and caressing those who had survived with kind words and glorious rewards. But many asked why he had not been there himself to direct the battle. And his entourage wondered what, if anything, had been achieved by the past four days of bloodletting.
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*
The town is referred to by diarists and historians by a variety of names, most commonly ‘Krasnoie’. I give the spelling used by the contemporary local historian Voronovsky.

A
ccording to his secretary Baron Fain, Napoleon felt disheartened and disgusted at the turn events had taken. He had beaten the Russians and taken a major city. But while he had inflicted heavy casualties on them, he had lost as many as 18,000 seasoned troops himself in the two engagements, and had failed to force the Russian army to accept defeat. As is abundantly clear from his contradictory utterances, he did not know what to do next.

‘In abandoning Smolensk, one of their holy cities, the Russian generals have dishonoured their arms in the sight of their own people,’ he said to Caulaincourt. ‘This gives me a good position. We will push them away a little distance in order to be at our ease, and I will consolidate. We will rest and use this strongpoint to organise the country, and we shall see how Alexander likes that. I will take command of the corps on the Dvina, which are doing nothing, and my army will be more formidable, my position more threatening to Russia than if I had won two battles. I will take up quarters at Vitebsk, arm Poland and later I will choose between Petersburg and Moscow.’
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But he knew he was talking nonsense. All the arguments militating against stopping in Vitebsk went, in magnified form, for Smolensk. The burnt-out city represented neither an effective bastion nor a resource for his army. But to retreat now was even more unthinkable than it had been at Vitebsk. He had led himself into a trap.