Authors: Adam Zamoyski
There had been a great many parties in the two months since Alexander’s arrival in Vilna in April. And if the rumours of ‘orgies’ were a little far-fetched, the time had indeed been whiled away in the pursuit of pleasure. ‘The fight is about to begin, and we are expecting to be attacked any day,’ Alexander had written to Aleksandr
Nikolaevich Galitzine only a week before. ‘We are all prepared and will do our best to carry out our duty. As for the rest, God will decide.’
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In fact, nobody and nothing was prepared. Even the burning issues of command and strategy had not been addressed, and as a result Alexander found himself in a very uncomfortable position when he returned to his quarters in the former archbishop’s palace in the early hours of 25 June. He had just learned that Napoleon had crossed the Niemen, and he had no idea what to do next.
He sent for Shishkov, who was fast asleep in his bed. When the State Secretary arrived, he found the Tsar writing at a table. Alexander informed him of the French invasion and instructed him to compose a proclamation to rally the nation in the face of foreign aggression, the gist of which he dictated himself. One of the few sensible things Alexander had done on his arrival in Vilna was to set up a printing press at headquarters, which would allow him to issue manifestos and leaflets with propaganda to combat the kind of fear and rumour that Napoleon’s reputation generated in the lower ranks.
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A few hours later Alexander held a council of war in order to decide on a course of action. Attack was no longer an option. Bagration’s plan, to strike up into what he believed to be the underbelly of the French armies, was hardly advisable in the absence of firm intelligence of French numbers and positions. A defence of Vilna was difficult to organise, as the Russian forces were scattered over too large an area. The French invasion had taken everyone unawares, and it would be days before they could be readied for battle. There was nothing for it but to withdraw. With Alexander’s approval, Barclay gave orders for a fallback to Shvienchiany, where he hoped to be able to concentrate his forces. He wrote to Bagration, asking him to draw back with his Second Army. ‘Faced with the consideration that the defence of the fatherland is entrusted to us at this critical moment, we must put away all differences and anything that might at other times influence our mutual relations,’ he wrote, in an appeal for cooperation. ‘The voice of our fatherland is calling us to reach an understanding, which is the only guarantor of success. We must unite
and defeat the enemy of Russia. The fatherland will bless us for acting in harmony.’
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In an address to his troops, Barclay exhorted them to show bravery and to emulate their comrades who had defeated Charles XII and Frederick the Great, adding that if there were any cowards among them, these should be flushed out at once. In fact, the army was spoiling for a fight. ‘“War!” shouted all the officers, all delighted at the news [of the French invasion], while a warlike spark ran like electricity through the veins of all those present,’ according to Lieutenant Radozhitsky. ‘We thought that we would immediately go out to meet the French, fight them on the border, and chase them back.’ ‘We were all delighted and rubbed our hands,’ another recalled. ‘It never entered anybody’s mind that we might retreat.’
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Barclay also printed leaflets to be strewn in the path of the invaders calling on Frenchmen to go home, and on the German soldiers in Napoleon’s ranks not to fight their Russian brothers, but to join the German Legion being organised in Russia to fight for the liberation of their own country, assuring them that Alexander would grant those who wanted it good land in southern Russia if they defected. Similar leaflets were printed for the Spanish and Portuguese, and for the Italians, who for their part produced an indignant and fiery response demanding that the Russians stand and fight so that they, the Italians, could redeem their honour.
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Alexander’s proclamation was published later that day. It was addressed as much to the world as to the Russian people. It claimed that he had always sought peace, and that it was only the unfriendly actions and then the military preparations of the French that had forced him to mobilise his forces. ‘But even then, cherishing the hope of reconciliation, we remained within the boundaries of our Empire, not disturbing the peace, while being ready to defend ourselves.’ Now that he had been attacked, Alexander could do no more than call on God for assistance and on his soldiers to do their duty. ‘Soldiers! You are defending your faith, your fatherland and your freedom! I am with you, God is against the aggressor!’ It unequivocally equated the
eventual defeat of Napoleon with the liberation of Europe by Russia.
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At the same time, Alexander decided on something which some have interpreted as evidence of a sudden loss of nerve, but which was probably only a piece of window-dressing – namely, to accept Napoleon’s proposal to negotiate. His earlier precondition to any talks had been that Napoleon’s troops vacate Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw; now he merely demanded that Napoleon withdraw beyond the Niemen. That evening he summoned Balashov and handed him a letter he had penned to Napoleon, instructing him to take it to the French headquarters. He told Balashov that he did not expect his mission would stop the war, but at least it would demonstrate to the world that Alexander wanted peace. And as Balashov was taking his leave, the Tsar reminded him to make it clear to Napoleon that he would not negotiate while a single French soldier remained on Russian soil.
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Early next morning, after hearing a report that French cavalry had been spotted approaching the city, Alexander made a hasty and less than dignified exit from Vilna. When news of this spread, a general panic ensued, as staff officers and the many hangers-on struggled to find horses to make their own getaway. Some of the more prescient inhabitants led their horses up the stairs of their houses and concealed them on upper floors. Barclay kept his head and evacuated his troops and headquarters, after destroying the bridge over the river Vilia and setting fire to the military stores which had been so painstakingly accumulated in the city.
These were still burning when, in the early afternoon of Sunday, 28 June, Napoleon rode into Vilna. He had been greeted at the gate by a delegation, but the inhabitants had not managed to prepare a triumphal reception. The Emperor rode through the city to inspect the smouldering remains of the bridge over the Vilia, and then reconnoitred the high ground above the city, before taking up his quarters in the same archepiscopal palace which Alexander had vacated not forty-eight hours before.
‘The Emperor’s manoeuvres will prevent this from being a
particularly bloody campaign,’ Marshal Davout reported to his wife the following day. ‘We have taken Wilna without a battle and forced the Russians to evacuate the whole of Poland: such a beginning to the campaign is equivalent to a great victory.’
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His enthusiasm was not shared by his imperial master. Napoleon was annoyed and somewhat mystified. He was annoyed that he had not managed to engage with the Russians, and mystified because he could not make out what they were up to. They had deployed a substantial army to face him, and appeared to be preparing to defend Vilna. But the moment he marched out to engage it they had decamped, abandoning an important city and all their stores. Their behaviour made no sense, and he could not be sure that they were not setting some kind of trap. He instructed all his corps commanders to proceed with the utmost caution and to expect a counterattack at any moment.
In the north, Macdonald was making for Riga more or less unopposed, and Oudinot was in hot pursuit of Wittgenstein, against whom he had scored a minor success. Ney and Murat were on the heels of Barclay. And to the south Jérôme was advancing with his Westphalians, Prince Eugène’s Italians and Poniatowski’s Poles. Napoleon himself, with the Guard and part of Davout’s corps, remained in Vilna, partly in order to supervise the rebuilding of bridges, the erection of fortifications and the construction of bread ovens, and partly out of the necessity to deal with alarming new problems.
The troops had been on the move for days, struggling on the bad roads to reach their positions. Their provision wagons were left far behind, and when they stopped for the night they often did not have the time or the energy to cook the rice they had in their knapsacks, let alone turn their bags of flour into bread. The countryside between the Niemen and Vilna was sparsely populated, and there was no food to be had from the locals, who had already been bled dry by the Russian forces over the past months. It was swelteringly hot, as hot as Spain in summer according to some of those who had campaigned there. The
marching columns kicked up clouds of fine dust, and the scarcity of habitations meant there were no wells at which the men could slake their parched throats. The horses also suffered from the heat and the lack of water, as well as from being fed on unripe barley and oats.
After four days of this, just as the exhausted men were about to bed down for the night – which meant lying down on the ground wherever they could find a place – a primeval storm burst upon the area to the south and west of Vilna. A torrent of freezing rain poured down on them all through the night, and they soon found themselves lying in pools of icy water. ‘By daybreak, the storm had passed, but it was still raining,’ recorded Colonel Boulart of the artillery of the Guard, who could hardly believe his eyes as he emerged from under the gun carriage where he had taken shelter. ‘What a sight offered itself to my eyes! A quarter of my horses were lying on the ground, some dead or dying, others shivering. I quickly ordered as many as possible to be harnessed, hoping to get my wagons away, and to set this sad crew in motion so that the poor creatures might generate some of the heat they so badly needed, and thereby prevent a good number of them dying.’
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Conditions were indescribable as the various units struggled to get to somewhere they might find shelter and food for themselves and their beasts. The roads were littered with the carcases of horses and the corpses of men, with abandoned wagons and gun carriages. ‘One could see in front of every
caisson
two or three of these creatures in full harness, their traces on the swingletree, fighting against death or already lying lifeless,’ recalled Lieutenant Sauvage of the artillery. ‘The gunners and the soldiers of the train stood by in mournful silence, their eyes filled with tears, trying to avert their gaze from this afflicting scene.’ Adjutant Lecoq of the Grenadiers à Cheval, a veteran of the Italian and Prussian campaigns, watched in horror as an artillery unit struggled through the storm. ‘The horses had water up to their bellies, on a shifting sandy road,’ he recalled. ‘As they tried to pull they lost their footing, fell and drowned.’
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The number of men who perished during the downpour was
probably quite small, although there were rumours of up to three grenadiers being struck by lightning. But losses among the horses were horrific. Most of the artillery units lost 25 per cent of theirs that night, and the situation in the cavalry was not much better. Abraham Rosselet, an officer in the 1st Swiss Regiment, estimated that Oudinot’s corps, to which he belonged, lost upwards of 1500 cavalry and artillery horses. Colonel Griois, commanding the divisional artillery of Grouchy’s cavalry corps, claimed that he lost 25 per cent of his. It is generally estimated that the combat units lost over 10,000 in a period of less than twenty-four hours. This is a conservative figure, and it does not take into account the losses of the supply columns, which according to one
commissaire
were probably as high as 40,000.
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The psychological damage left by the storm was hardly less significant. As the men trudged on through the quagmire that had replaced the sandy roads, they could see dead and dying men and beasts by the roadside, and rumours of grenadiers of the Old Guard having been struck by lightning passed from rank to rank. The young Anatole de Montesquiou-Fezensac joked with Baron Fain that if they had been Greeks or Romans in ancient times they would undoubtedly have turned about and gone home after such an omen. Others took it more seriously, the Italians in particular. ‘So many disasters were a sad augury for the future,’ wrote Eugène Labaume. ‘Everyone began to take fearful note of them, and if, following the example of the ancients, we had shown more respect for the warnings of heaven, the whole army would have been saved: but, the sun having reappeared over the horizon, our apprehensions were dissipated along with the clouds.’
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Napoleon’s apprehensions were not dissipated so easily. Soon after his arrival in Vilna he became aware of the appalling losses his army had sustained, and, what was worse, of the fact that his carefully-worked-out plans for supplying it had come to nothing. The heavy wagons drawn by oxen had sunk into the sand of the Lithuanian roads before being waterlogged by the storm. The supplies despatched from
Danzig through Königsberg by river and canal had had no trouble in reaching Kovno, but the river Vilia was too shallow in places for the barges, and they could not be brought up until some dredging was carried out or their loads were transferred to shallower boats.
The French found no supplies to speak of in Vilna, and now, thanks to the storm, there were no horses with which to bring any in. ‘We are losing so many horses in this country that it will take all the resources of France and Germany to keep the present effectives of the regiments mounted,’ Napoleon wrote to his Minister of War, General Clarke. And while no supplies were finding their way to Vilna, sick stragglers were limping or dragging themselves in at an alarming rate. There were soon 30,000 of them crowding the hospitals rapidly improvised to receive them.
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