B009YBU18W EBOK (55 page)

The mood was effervescent, and the scene reminded many of a masquerade or a carnival. Mailly watched in amazement as a family of French merchants from Moscow drove out. ‘These ladies were dressed just like Parisian
bourgeoises
off for a picnic in the Bois de Vincennes or Romainville,’ he wrote, adding that one was wearing a pink hat trimmed with silk, a pink satin doublet and white dress trimmed with lace, and white satin slippers.
¹⁸

Colonel Griois could hardly believe his eyes as he watched. ‘Dense columns, made up of soldiers of various arms, advanced without order; the weak, skinny horses dragged the artillery along with difficulty; the soldiers, on the other hand, were full of health and strength, since they had enjoyed six weeks of abundant victuals. Generals, officers, soldiers, commissioners, all had employed every means for taking with them everything they had amassed. Carriages of the greatest elegance, peasant carts,
fourgons
, drawn by the little local horses and overloaded with luggage, trundled in the middle of the columns, higgledy-piggledy with saddlehorses and draught animals. The soldiers were bent under the weight of their packs. To abandon any part of their booty would have been too cruel. But they had to face up to it, and from that first day baggage was abandoned by the roadside, along with carriages whose horses could no longer draw them. This mass of men, of horses and of vehicles resembled rather the migration of a people on the move than an organised army.’
¹⁹

Estimates of the number of non-military vehicles vary from 15,000 to 40,000, and the number of civilians, including servants, may have been as high as 50,000.
²⁰
This was an extraordinary amount of impedimenta for an army to drag along in its wake. Quite apart from slowing down its movements and cluttering the roads, it had a profoundly demoralising effect. The men’s thoughts were on their booty
rather than on the fighting ahead, and this introduced an element of anxiety and distraction which undermined the cohesion of even the best units.

The actual armed forces at Napoleon’s disposal as he left Moscow numbered no more than 95,000, and probably less. According to Lieutenant-Colonel de Baudus, aide-de-camp to Bessières, most of the young soldiers had fallen by the wayside or died by the time the Grande Armée had reached Moscow, with the result that those who were left were a fine lot. This was certainly true of the infantry. The men had not only had a rest, they had restored their strength with regular food, and had repaired their uniforms and boots. Dr Bourgeois thought the troops were in fine fettle. ‘They marched along gaily, singing at the tops of their voices,’ noted Mailly.
²¹

Captain François Dumonceau of the Lancers of Berg was impressed by the aspect of Prince Eugène’s Italians as they marched out of Moscow, laughing and singing. ‘These troops had a fine martial look,’ he wrote. ‘It was evident that they had recovered well from their previous exertions; the soldiers appeared to be gay and ready for anything.’ His impression was confirmed by Prince Eugène himself, who thought they were in good shape, even though, with 20,000 infantry and two thousand cavalry left out of an original total of nearly 45,000 men, their numbers had been drastically reduced.
²²

Those troops that had been stationed furthest from Moscow were in the worst shape. After Vinkovo, Poniatowski’s 5th Corps was down to no more than four thousand worn-out men. Junot’s Westphalians, who had been quartered at Mozhaisk, were no longer a fighting force. And while the cavalry of the Guard was in reasonable order, even if its horses were not in prime condition, and some of the light cavalry attached to the various corps was still serviceable, Murat’s once fine corps was by now a phantom force.

A few miles outside Moscow, General Rapp saw Napoleon standing by the roadside, and rode up to him. ‘Well, Rapp, we are going to withdraw to the frontiers of Poland by the Kaluga road,’ the Emperor said. ‘I shall take good winter quarters; I hope that Alexander will
make peace.’ Rapp said that the winter would be cold and conditions harsh, but Napoleon dismissed this. ‘Today is 19 October, and look how fine the weather is,’ he said. ‘Do you not recognise my star?’ But Rapp felt this was no more than bravado, and noted that ‘his face bore the mark of anxiety’.
²³

The high spirits of the troops as they left Moscow soon flagged as they struggled along the crowded road, trying to avoid being forced into the ditch or crushed by the thousands of vehicles. Every time they came to a bridge or a defile there would be fierce struggles for precedence, with fists and even swords and bayonets coming into play as well as curses in a dozen languages. Most of the bridges in this part of the world were made of long pine logs laid across the ravine or stream, possibly supported by an upright or two, with shorter round logs laid across them to form the causeway, which was then covered with straw and compacted earth to make a smooth surface. If one of the transversal logs rotted or snapped and fell through, the others would roll back and forth, catching and breaking the legs of horses and men, particularly if there was a crush of people struggling to get across. On 22 October the heavens opened and the road became a sea of mud. More and more vehicles had to be abandoned, more and more cumbersome objects jettisoned from knapsacks, and the line of march lengthened as stragglers failed to keep up.

Napoleon moved southwards, down the old Kaluga road, making straight for Kutuzov’s camp at Tarutino, while Prince Eugène and his 4th Corps marched down the new Kaluga road, a little to the west. One can only speculate as to Napoleon’s intentions. He may have wanted to avenge the defeat of Vinkovo by attacking the Russian army full on while Prince Eugène outflanked it, but if he did he changed his mind, for two days out of Moscow, on 21 October, he marched his main forces across country in a westerly direction onto the new Kaluga road and joined Prince Eugène at Fominskoie. He ordered him to move fast and seize the little town of Maloyaroslavets, commanding the crossing of that road over the river Luzha.

He also sent orders to Mortier in Moscow to abandon the city and
fall back on Mozhaisk. He instructed him to evacuate all the wounded left in the city, including those who had previously been deemed too sick to move. ‘I cannot recommend strongly enough that all the men still remaining in the hospitals should be loaded onto the wagons of the Young Guard, of the dismounted cavalry and on all those that come to hand,’ he wrote. ‘The Romans gave civic crowns to those who saved their fellow citizens; the Marshal Duke of Treviso [Mortier] will merit as many of those as he saves soldiers.’ He told him not to be afraid to overload the wagons, as he would find fresh horses and empty supply wagons at Mozhaisk. He was to give preference to officers and NCOs, and to Frenchmen. As a final exhortation, Napoleon reminded Mortier of his own feat of bringing home his wounded from Acre in 1799.
²⁴

He had previously instructed him to blow up the Kremlin before leaving, and to torch the town houses of Rostopchin and Count Razumovsky, a diplomat for whom he had a personal dislike. At 1.30 on the morning of 23 October the units that were not too far from Moscow could hear the dull thuds as the charges went off. ‘This ancient citadel, which dates from the foundation of the monarchy, this first palace of the Tsars, no longer exists!’ proclaimed the twenty-sixth Bulletin.
²⁵
Fortunately, many of the fuses failed, and although the damage was extensive, the Kremlin was not actually destroyed.

This did nothing to soften the feelings of the rabble who began to rampage around the capital the moment the last French troops had marched out. They murdered any sick Frenchmen they found and attacked the Foundling Hospital, where Captain Thomas Aubry, a Chasseur wounded at Borodino, helped organise a defence along with three wounded Russian generals. In spite of being in the throes of a raging fever, Aubry took up his post in a ward full of soldiers of both armies and, sword in hand, gave the firing orders to keep the attackers at bay until regular Russian troops arrived.
²⁶

News of the French evacuation of Moscow was brought to Tarutino at night by Lieutenant Bolgovsky. He informed Konovnitsin and Toll,
who went to wake the Field Marshal. After a while the Lieutenant was called into Kutuzov’s room, where he found the old man sitting on his bed in his frock-coat and his decorations. ‘Tell me, my friend,’ Kutuzov said to him, according to the Lieutenant’s perhaps fanciful account, ‘what is this news that you have brought me? Can it really be true that Napoleon has left Moscow and is retreating? Speak, quickly, do not torture my heart, it is trembling.’ When the young officer had told him everything he knew, Kutuzov began to sob and, turning to the icon of the Saviour in the corner of the room said: ‘God, my creator, at last you have heard our prayers, and from this moment Russia is saved.’
²⁷

Meanwhile General Dokhturov, who had been sent out by Kutuzov to reconnoitre the area in front of Tarutino, located Prince Eugène’s 4th Corps near Fominskoie and decided to attack it. Luckily for him, his scouts picked up a couple of prisoners from whom he learned that he was about to take on not just Eugène but the whole Grande Armée. He also learned that it was headed for Maloyaroslavets. Realising that if it were allowed to occupy the town it would outflank the Russian army and threaten its supply lines, he sent word to Kutuzov and himself made a forced march in the hope of getting there before Prince Eugène. But when he reached the little town at dawn on 24 October, Dokhturov found that the French had got there first.

Maloyaroslavets is perched atop a curving ridge running along the southern bank of the Luzha in a wide semicircle. It had been occupied by two battalions of Delzons’ division, the rest of which was camped on the low ground on the north bank of the river. Dokhturov stormed the town and managed to throw out the two battalions, but was then forced to give it up by a counterattack mounted by Delzons, in which the Croats of his 1st Illyrian Regiment distinguished themselves.

Kutuzov, who was far closer to Maloyaroslavets than Dokhturov when he received news of the French movements, was so slow to react that it was not until mid-morning that the first of his units, Raevsky’s corps, turned up on the scene. In a dashing attack, Raevsky
recaptured the town from the Italians, who had been reinforced by Broussier’s division, but was himself thrown out by a spirited attack by Pino’s division. Maloyaroslavets changed hands no fewer than eight times as more and more reinforcements came up on both sides. Most of the fighting took place at very close quarters, much of it in the streets of the by now flaming town, with burning houses crashing down on the living, the dead and the wounded. Many of those who managed to crawl free were crushed under the hooves and wheels of the artillery, which was constantly changing position.

The fighting continued long after nightfall, when the spectacle became ‘indescribably magnificent and interesting’ in the words of General Wilson, who was watching from the Russian lines. ‘The crackling flames – the dark shadows of the combatants flitting
amongst them – the hissing ring of the grape as it flew from the licornes – the rattling of the musketry – the ignited shells traversing and crossing in the atmosphere – the wild shouts of the combatants, and all the accompaniments of the sanguinary struggle formed an ensemble seldom witnessed.’
²⁸
The Italians fought like lions, and at nightfall they remained masters of the town.

‘This battle was one of the finest feats of arms of the whole campaign,’ in the opinion of General Berthézène. Napoleon was full of praise for Prince Eugène and his troops. So was Wilson. ‘The Italian army had displayed qualities which entitled it evermore to take rank amongst the bravest troops in Europe,’ he wrote. The Delzons, Broussier and Pino divisions, as well as the Italian Royal Guard, had in the latter part of the action been supported by the Compans and Gérard divisions of Davout’s 1st Corps, bringing the total number involved on the French side that day to about 27,000, with seventy-two cannon. They had triumphed over some 32,000 Russians with 354 cannon. ‘Yes, this was indeed one of the most glorious victories,’ wrote Captain Bartolomeo Bertolini, ‘which, both on account of the disasters by which it was followed, and on account of the ingratitude and malice of the French historians who principally write about Napoleon’s battles, is hardly mentioned.’
²⁹

But the cost had been heavy. French losses came to about six thousand dead and wounded, and included General Delzons, killed by a bullet in the head while leading the attack. The Russians had lost more, but they could afford to. ‘Another victory like this one, the soldiers are saying, and Napoleon won’t have an army left,’ recorded the chief of staff of Prince Eugène’s corps.
³⁰
And tactically, the French victory was meaningless.