[1811-1812 A.D.] was to be gained by complaisance to France, consequently assumed a threatening posture, and condescended to listen to the complaints of his agricultural and mercantile subjects. No Russian vessel durst venture out to sea, and a Russian fleet had been seized by the British in the harbours of Lisbon. At Riga lay immense stores of grain in want of a foreign market. On the 31st of December, 1810, Alexander published a fresh tariff permitting the importation of colonial products under a neutral flag (several hundred English ships arrived under the American flag), and prohibiting the importation of French manufactured goods. Not many weeks previously, on the 13th of December, Napoleon had annexed Oldenberg to France. The duke, Peter, was nearly related to the emperor of Russia, and Napoleon, notwithstanding his declared readiness to grant a compensation, refused to allow it to consist of the grandduchy of Warsaw, and proposed a duchy of Erfurt, as yet uncreated, which Russia scornfully rejected.

The alliance between Russia, Sweden, and England was now speedily concluded. Sweden, which had vainly demanded from Napoleon the possession of Norway and a large supply of money, assumed a tone of indignation, threw open her harbours to the British merchantmen, and so openly carried on a contraband trade in Pomerania, that Napoleon, in order to maintain the continental system, was constrained to garrison Swedish Pomerania and Rügen and to disarm the Swedish inhabitants. Bernadotte, upon this, ranged himself entirely on the side of his opponents, without, however, coming to an open rupture, for which he awaited a declaration on the part of Russia. The expressions made use of by Napoleon on the birth of the king of Rome at length filled up the measure of provocation. Intoxicated with success, he boasted, in an address to the mercantile classes, that he would, in despite of Russia, maintain the continental system, for he was lord over the whole of continental Europe; and that if Alexander had not concluded a treaty with him at Tilsit, he would have compelled him to do so at St. Petersburg. The pride of the haughty Russian was deeply wounded, and a rupture was nigh at hand.

Russia had, meanwhile, anticipated Napoleon in making preparations for war. As early as 1811, a great Russian army stood ready for the invasion of Poland, and might, as there were at that time but few French troops in Germany, easily have advanced as far as the Elbe. It remained, however, in a state of inactivity. Napoleon instantly prepared for war and fortified Dantzic. His continual proposals of peace, ever unsatisfactory to the ambition of the czar, remaining at length unanswered, he declared war.k

But, to get within reach of Russia, it was necessary for Napoleon to pass beyond Austria, to cross Prussia, and to conciliate Sweden and Turkey; an offensive alliance with these four powers was therefore indispensable. Austria was subject to the ascendency of Napoleon, and Prussia to his arms: to them, therefore, he had only to declare his intentions; Austria voluntarily and eagerly entered into his plans, and Prussia he easily prevailed on to join him.

Austria, however, did not act blindly. Situated between the two giant powers of the north and the west, she was not displeased to see them at war: she looked to their mutually weakening each other, and to the increase of her own strength by their exhaustion. On the 14th of March, 1812, she promised France thirty thousand men, but she prepared prudent secret instructions for them. She obtained a vague promise of an increase of territory as an indemnity for her share of the expenses of the war, and the possession of Galicia was guaranteed to her. She admitted, however, the future possibility of a cession of part of that province to the kingdom of Poland, but in exchange for

[1812 A.D.]

that she would have received the Illyrian Provinces. The sixth article of the secret treaty establishes this fact.

The success of the war, therefore, in no degree depended on the cession of Galicia, or the difficulties arising from the Austrian jealousy respecting that possession. Napoleon consequently might, on his entrance into Vilna, have publicly proclaimed the liberation of the whole of Poland, instead of betraying the expectations of her people, confounding and rendering them indifferent by expressions of doubtful import. This was one of those decisive issues which occur in politics as well as in war, and which determine the future. No consideration ought to have made Napoleon swerve from his purpose. But whether it was that he reckoned too much on the ascendency of his genius, or the strength of his army and the weakness of Alexander; or that, considering what he left behind him, he felt it too dangerous to carry on so distant a war slowly and methodically; or whether, as we shall presently be told by himself, he had doubts of the success of his undertaking, certain it is that he either neglected or could not yet venture to proclaim the liberation of that country whose freedom he had come to restore. Yet he had sent an ambassador to her diet; and when this inconsistency was remarked to him he replied that that nomination was an act of war, which only bound him during the war, while by his words he would be bound both in war and peace. Thus it was that he made no other answer to the enthusiasm of the Lithuanians than evasive expressions, at the very time he was following up his attack on Alexander to the very capital of his empire.

He even neglected to clear the southern Polish provinces of the feeble hostile armies which kept the patriotism of their inhabitants in check, and to secure, by strongly organising their insurrection, a solid basis of operation. Accustomed to short methods and to rapid attacks, he wished to do as he had done before, in spite of the difference of places and circumstances; for such is the weakness of man that he is always led by imitation, either of others or of himself, which in the latter case is habit, for habit is nothing more than the imitation of one's self. Accordingly, it is by their strongest side that great men are often undone!h

Napoleon Invades Russia (1812 A.D.)

On the 24th of June, 1812, Napoleon crossed the Niemen, the Russian frontier, not far from Kovno. The season was already too far advanced. It may be that, deceived by the mildness of the winter of 1806 to 1807, he imagined it possible to protract the campaign without peril to himself until the winter months. No enemy appeared to oppose his progress. Barclay de Tolly, the Russian_commander-in-chief, pursued the system followed by the Scythians against Dairus, and perpetually retiring before the enemy gradually drew him deep into the dreary and deserted steppes. This plan originated with Scharnhorst, by whom General Lieven was advised not to hazard an engagement until the winter, and to turn a deaf ear to every proposal of peace. General Lieven, on reaching Barclay's headquarters, took into his confidence Colonel Toll, a German, Barclay's right hand, and Lieutenant-Colonel Clausewitz, also a German, afterwards noted for his strategical works.

General Pful, another German, at that time high in the emperor's confidence, and almost all the Russian generals opposed Scharnhorst's plan, and continued to advance with a view of giving battle: but on Napoleon's appearance at the head of an army greatly their superior in number, before the Russians had been able to concentrate their forces, they were naturally com

[1812 A.D.]

pelled to retire before him; and, on the prevention, for some weeks, of the junction of a newly levied Russian army under Prince Bagration with the forces under Barclay, owing to the rapidity of Napoleon's advance, Scharnhorst's plan was adopted as the only one feasible.

Whilst the French were advancing, a warm and tedious discussion was carried on so long in the imperial Russian council of war at Vilna, whether to defend that city, or adopt the plan of Barclay de Tolly, the minister of war and commander-in-chief, that they were at length obliged to march precipitately to the Dvina with the sacrifice of considerable stores, and to take possession of a fortified camp which had been established at Drissa. As late as the 27th the emperor Alexander and the whole of his splendid staff and court were assembled at a ball, at the castle of Zacrest, near Vilna, belonging to General Bennigsen, so that the French found everything on the 28th just as it had been prepared for the reception of the emperor of Russia. They plundered the castle, and carried off the furniture as booty; the Russians were even obliged to leave behind them considerable quantities of ammunition and provisions.

In this way the line of the Russian defences was broken through; and even a portion of their army under Platov and Bagration would have been cut off, had the king of Westphalia obeyed the commands of his brother with the necessary rapidity. The difficulties of carrying on war in such an inhospitable country as Lithuania and Russia became apparent even at Vilna; the carriages and wagons fell behind, the cannon were obliged to be left, discipline became relaxed, above ten thousand horses had already fallen, and their carcases poisoned the air. General Balakov could scarcely be considered serious in the proposals which he then made for peace in the name of the emperor of Russia, because the Russians required as a preliminary to all negotiation that the French army should first retire behind the Niemen. The mission of a general, who had been minister of police, and had therefore had great experience in obtaining information, had no doubt a very different object in view from that of making peace at such a moment.

Napoleon, in the hope of overtaking the Russians, and of compelling them to give battle, pushed onwards by forced marches; the supplies were unable to follow, and numbers of the men and horses sank from exhaustion, owing to over-fatigue, heat, and hunger. On the arrival of Napoleon in Witepsk, of Schwarzenberg in Volhinia, of the Prussians before Riga, the army might have halted, reconquered Poland, have been organised, the men put into winter quarters, the army have again taken the field early in the spring, and the conquest of Russia have been slowly but surely completed. But Napoleon had resolved upon terminating the war in one rapid campaign, upon defeating the Russians, seizing their metropolis, and dictating terms of peace. He incessantly pursued his retreating opponent, whose footsteps were marked by the flames of the cities and villages and by the devastated country to their rear. The first serious opposition was made at Smolensk, whence the Russians, however, speedily retreated after setting the city on fire. On the same day, the Bavarians, who had diverged to one side during their advance, had a furious encounter at Polotsk with a body of Russian troops under Wittgenstein. The Bavarians remained stationary in this part of the country for the purpose of watching the movements of that general, whilst Napoleon, careless of the peril with which he was threatened by the approach of winter and by the multitude of enemies gathered to his rear, advanced with the main body of the grand army from Smolensk across the wasted country upon Moscow, the ancient metropolis of the Russian empire.

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Russia, at that time engaged in a war with Turkey, whose frontiers were watched by an immense army under Kutusov, used her utmost efforts, in which she was aided by England, to conciliate the Porte in order to turn the whole of her forces against Napoleon. By a master-stroke of political intrigue, the Porte was made to conclude a disadvantageous peace at Bucharest on the 28th of May, as we have already related. A Russian army under Tchitchakov was now enabled to drive the Austrians out of Volhinia, whilst a considerable. force under Kutusov joined Barclay. Buturlin, the Russian historian of the war, states that the national troops opposed to the invaders numbered 217,000 in the first line, and 35,000 in the second. Chambray, whose details are very minute, after deducting the men in hospital, gives the number of those present under arms as 235,000 of the regular army, without reckoning the garrisons of Riga, etc. This computation exceeds that of Buturlin, under the same circumstances, by 17,000. M. de Fezensac allows 230,000 for the total of the two armies of Barclay de Tolly and Bagration, but adds the army of Tormassov on their extreme left, 68,000, and that defending Courland, on the extreme right, 34,000, to make up the Russian total of 330,000 men.

Had the Russians at this time hazarded an engagement, their defeat was: certain. Moscow could not have been saved. Barclay consequently resolved not to come to an engagement, but to husband his forces and to attack the French during the winter. The intended surrender of Moscow without a blow was, nevertheless, deeply resented as a national disgrace; the army and the people raised a clamour. Kutuzov, though immeasurably inferior to Barclay,. was nominated commander-in-chief, took up a position on the little river Moskva near Borodino, about two days' journey from Moscow. A bloody engagement took place there on the 7th of September, in which Napoleon, in order to spare his guards, neglected to follow up his advantage with his usual energy, and allowed the defeated Russians, whom he might have totally annihilated, to escape. Napoleon triumphed; but at what a price! - after a fearful struggle, in which he lost forty thousand men in killed and wounded,. the latter of whom perished, almost to a man, owing to want and neglect.k

The Abandonment of Moscow

On his birthday, which was the 30th of August (11th of September of the Russian calendar), the emperor Alexander received a report from Prince Kontonzov of the battle that had taken place at Borodino on the 26th of August, and which as the commander-in-chief wrote, "had terminated by the enemy not gaining a single step of territory in spite of their superior forces." To this Kutuzov added that after having spent the night on the field of battle, he had, in view of the enormous losses sustained by the army, retreated to Mozhaisk. The losses on either side amounted to forty thousand men. As Ermolov very justly expressed it, "the French army was dashed to pieces against the Russian." Although the emperor Alexander was not led into any error as to the real signification of the battle of Borodino, yet wishing to maintain the hopes of the nation as to the successful termination of the struggle with Napoleon and their confidence in Kutuzov, he accepted the report of the conflict of the 26th of August as the announcement of a victory. Prince Kutuzov was created general field-marshal and granted a sum of 100,000 rubles. Barclay de Tolly was rewarded with the order of St. George of the second class, and the mortally wounded Prince Bagration with a sum of 50,000 rubles. Fourteen generals received the order of St. George of the third class,.

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and all the privates who had taken part in the battle were given five rubles each.

Prince Kutuzov's despatch of the 27th of August to the emperor Alexander was read by Prince Gortchakov at the Nevski monastery before a thanksgiving service which took place in the presence of their majesties, and was printed in the Northern Post But the following lines were omitted from the report: "Your imperial majesty will deign to agree that after a most sanguinary battle, which lasted fifteen hours, our army and that of the enemy could not fail to be in disorder. Moreover, through the losses sustained this day the position has naturally become incompatible with the depleted number of our troops therefore, all our aims being directed to the destruction of the French army, I have come to the decision to fall back six versts, that is, beyond Mozhaisk."

A moment of anxious expectation approached in St. Petersburg. Meanwhile Kutuzov, retreating step by step, led the army to Moscow, and on the 1st of September he assembled a council of war at the village of Filiakh. There was decided the fate of the first capital of the empire. After prolonged debates Kutuzov concluded the conference by saying: "I know that I shall have to pay the damage, but I sacrifice myself for the good of my country. I give the order to retreat."

It was already towards nightfall when Rostoptchin received the following letter from Kutuzov: "The fact that the enemy has divided his columns upon Zvenigorod and Borovsk, together with the disadvantageous position now occupied by our troops, oblige me to my sorrow to abandon Moscow. The army is marching on the route to Riazan." It was thus that Rostoptchin received the first definite information of Kutuzov's intention to leave Moscow a few hours before the French were in sight of the capital; under these circumstances the Moscow commander-in-chief did all that was possible on his side and took all measures for setting the town on fire at the approach of the army. Rostoptchin departed unhindered in a droshky by the back gates.

*

When on the 2nd of September Napoleon reached the Dragomilovski barriers, he expected to find there a deputation, begging that the city might be spared; but instead of that he received the news that Moscow had been abandoned by its inhabitants. "Moscow deserted! What an improbable event! We must make sure of it. Go and bring the boyars to me," said he to Count Darn, whom he sent into the town. Instead of the boyars a few foreigners were collected who confirmed the news that Moscow had been abandoned by nearly all its inhabitants. Having passed the night on the outskirts of the city, on the morning of the 3rd of September Napoleon transferred his headquarters to the Kremlin. But here a still more unexpected occurrence awaited him. The fires, which had already commenced the eve, had not ceased burning; and on the night between the 3rd and the 4th of September the flames, driven along by a strong wind, had enveloped the greater part of the town. At midday the flames reached the Kremlin, and Napoleon was forced to seek a refuge in the Petrovski palace, where he remained until the 6th of September, when the fire began to abate.1 Nine tenths of the city became the prey of the flames, and pillage completed the calamities that overtook the inhabitants who had remained in it.

It was only on the 7th of September that the emperor Alexander received through Iaroslav a short despatch from Count Rostoptchin to the effect that Kutuzov had decided to abandon Moscow. The next day, the 8th of Septem

'Gazing from the Kremlin on Moscow in flames, Napoleon said, "This forebodes the greatest calamity for us." ." Journal du Maréchal Castellane, Paris, 1895.