Part 40

But the severest blow to Russia came from the favors shown the Poles, to reward their valorous coöperation in the Wagram campaign. The Czar, who feared the restoration of the kingdom of Poland, attempted to secure from Napoleon the promise that that kingdom should never be reëstablished. Napoleon’s reply was that he would only pledge himself not to give any assistance to any revolt tending to restore the kingdom of Poland. The Czar’s anxiety was misplaced, for the provinces of his empire that he feared might be taken, were in no sense Polish socially, though they had formed a part of the ancient kingdom of Poland. There was no likelihood of a popular movement in favor of the Poles, nor would the population have endured a pro-Polish rearrangement of their territory against the Russians, with whom they, as members of the Orthodox Church, were closely in sympathy. There was also a pro-Russian party among the Poles which Alexander encouraged, by proposing a scheme to establish an enlarged autonomous Poland with a constitution under Russian protection. In 1811, Russian troops were massed together, to invade the grand duchy of Warsaw, and so to encourage the Russian partisans to carry through Alexander’s scheme.

In the spring of 1811, Napoleon, who had at first made light of the intimations of the hostile purposes of the Czar, that kept coming to him from Polish sources, realized that there was a substance behind these reports and began to collect forces from all parts of his empire to protect the grand duchy. Napoleon told the Russian representatives of his gigantic preparations, and at the same time declared that he wished for peace; he asked also whether Alexander thought he was ready to sacrifice 200,000 Frenchmen to re-establish Poland.

But the final rupture arose over Napoleon’s economic policy. Alexander refused to give up the right of trading with neutrals. “I am ready,” he said, “to withdraw to Siberia rather than accept for Russia the situation now occupied by Austria and Prussia.” When the Russian ultimatum was handed in, its conditions were the settlement of Alexander’s grievances with Sweden, the evacuation of Prussia, and the right of commerce with neutrals as preliminary to the question of tariffs and indemnity for the seizure of Oldenburg. Napoleon’s unwilling allies, Prussia and Austria, smarting as they were from past defeats at his hands, were not to be depended upon. On the other hand, Russia’s hands were made free by subsidies from England, by a treaty of peace with Turkey, and by the valuable aid of Sweden, whose crown prince was now Bernadotte, a kinsman of Napoleon and one of his ablest marshals.

In May, 1812, the French Emperor appeared in Dresden, ready to undertake the invasion of Russia; he was the personal ruler of 130 French departments, and under him, in the relation of vassals, were seven kingdoms and thirty princes. In Poland, he was greeted with great enthusiasm, but the actual contingents supplied to his army from Polish sources did not amount to more than 70,000 men. Much of the Grand Army with which Russia was now invaded, 678,000 in all (among the items being 480,000 foot, 100,000 horse, and 80,000 artillerymen), were composed, to the proportion of nearly half, of foreign contingents. Besides the force taken with him to Russia, he had at his command, under arms, 150,000 soldiers in France, 50,000 in Italy, 300,000 in Spain. The plan of campaign was to penetrate into the interior of the Russian Empire, leaving ample forces to guard communications and protect the flanks, as the French advanced. On the Russian side the forces were much less numerous, and there actually faced the 400,000 French who crossed the Niemen the last of June, only 147,000 Russians.

Napoleon’s plan depended for success on quick action. He hoped to attack and overcome the two chief Russian armies, before they had effected a junction. But the country was not like the plains of central Europe; it was marshy and broken by forests. His commanders, especially his brother Jerome, whose position at the head of an army corps was an absurd concession to the clan spirit of the Bonaparte family, showed dilatoriness in executing important strategical movements. The troops also suffered in their discipline from the constant marauding expeditions. Desertions were numerous, many lagged behind, and there were epidemics in the invading army owing to the extreme heat. From these various causes the divisions lost a large percentage of their effective strength, so that by the middle of July the invaders were faced by a reduction in the original number of their army of 150,000 men. Napoleon won no decisive victory, for after every engagement the enemy contrived to get away, drawing the invading forces farther into the interior of the country.

At Smolensk and Borodino there were battles that recalled the Eylau campaign, the losses were heavy on both sides without producing any change in the position of the opposing armies. On September 7, a murderous battle took place at Borodino near Moscow; the victory for the French might have been complete, if Napoleon had not at a critical time refused to let his guard charge, saying that he did not want to destroy it, 800 leagues away from France. The loss on both sides was frightful; of the French 30,000 were “hors de combat,” while the Russians counted their losses at 60,000. Among the killed on the French side were three generals of division, nine brigadier generals, and ten colonels. The Russians lost their heroic commander Bagration.

The road was now opened to Moscow, but there was no rejoicing among the victors, for on the field of battle lay 30,000 dead and 60,000 wounded. On the 14th, Napoleon entered the city, the ancient capital of Russia. Most of the inhabitants had fled, leaving only the lower classes and the occupants of the prisons, whom the governor of the city had released, when he heard of the victory of the French. While the army was halted in expectation that Alexander would sue for peace, a fire, started by Russian incendiaries, soon consumed most of the city, the houses of which were constructed entirely of wood. Fifteen thousand of the Russian wounded, who had been brought on in ambulances, were burnt to death. After the fire had spent its course Napoleon took up his abode in the Kremlin, which was only saved by the efforts of the Imperial Guard. He still hoped that terms of peace might be arranged, but Alexander continued inflexible.

Napoleon for a time contemplated spending the winter in Russia, since he recognized the practical difficulties of the retreat and the loss of prestige due to his withdrawal. Finally he decided to return by the southern provinces. The start west began on the 19th of November, 1812, with a force of 100,000 men; the way south was made impracticable by the obstinate resistance of the Russian general Kutusoff, with his army of only 50,000 men. Therefore the route over which they had come had to be taken for the return. The rearguard was constantly harassed by the enemy, and early in November there was a battle at Viazma, in which the French lost from 15,000 to 18,000 men. Snow began to fall, food was scarce, the troops were badly prepared to endure the wintry weather; out of 100,000 men there were soon only 40,000 left able to bear arms, and at Smolensk on the 12th of November only 34,000 were left.

No French army corps actually surrendered, but they suffered terrible losses, some of them losing half their effective strength. The Russians who followed the retreat were also reduced from 60,000 to 30,000. At the Berezina, where three Russian armies were joined to dispute the passage, the French with unheard-of bravery rescued themselves from capture by forces three times as numerous, and inflicted on the Russians a loss of 14,000 men. When the remnants of the army reached Lithuania, Napoleon left them there in order to make a rapid return to Paris and to counteract by his presence in his capital the bad effect of the news of the defeat in Russia. New armies had to be raised, for it was practically certain that a large part of Germany would soon be in revolt. Though temporarily strengthened by the various contingents left to protect the communications eastward, the final stage of the retreat from Russia, which was conducted by Murat, bore witness to the frightful straits and demoralization of the French. The sick and wounded were abandoned; there were no provisions for carrying the artillery or the pontoons; even the army treasure and the secret archives had to be left behind. Before the end of the journey west Ney, who commanded the rearguard, had with him no more than 500 or 600 men, and when the Old Guard entered Königsberg, it was reduced to 1500 men, of whom only 500 were fit to bear arms.

The extent of the Russian disaster may be measured by a few statistics; 533,000 soldiers crossed the actual frontier into Russia in the summer of 1812; 18,000 of the main army returned in the December following; about 130,000 men had been made prisoners in Russia, 55,000 had deserted at the opening of the campaign, and there were 55,000 survivors of the various corps that had been stationed as reserves along the line outside of the Russian territory. Altogether 250,000 must be reckoned as having perished during the course of the march to Moscow and the retreat from that city. The disaster meant that Napoleon’s schemes of European domination were checked and his military resources much diminished. It was no longer a question of new conquests, but of turning to face the nations who had suffered so long from French despotic rule.

VIII DEFEAT AND EXILE

From every quarter came the word that, with the Grand Army destroyed, the French Cæsar must now yield; his system, it was said, had expired on the plains of Russia. The hostile spirit of a subject population was seen as the straggling French passed through Prussia; soldiers who dropped out of the ranks were disarmed by the peasants, insulted and badly handled. The Prussians and Austrians made separate arrangements with the Russians, by which hostilities, so far as each were concerned, were to be suspended. Most of Prussia was abandoned; there were only 40,000 French left to oppose a revolted Germany. Even Murat, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, abandoned the failing cause and retired suddenly to Naples, to make from there arrangements on his own account with the Austrian Prime Minister Metternich.

The activity of Napoleon in such a desperate situation was marvelous. As to money, he collected nearly $100,000,000 by using his own private treasury and selling large amounts of communal estates. Every available man was placed under arms, including the National Guard and even by anticipation the conscripts of 1814--there were already 140,000 of the conscripts of 1813 under training--the sailors in the seaports were enrolled as soldiers; and many regiments were taken from Spain. Altogether there was collected and sent in detachments to Germany an army of 500,000 men, mostly made up of youths less than twenty years of age. In order to give them discipline and stability, veterans were incorporated in the new regiments.

Napoleon was not so alert as he had been; he was suffering from an internal disease, and sometimes for weeks he was incapable of effort. There were frequent attacks also of drowsiness, all indicative of exhaustion of his powers. He was more intolerant than ever of criticism, refused to take advice, was suspicious of his counselors, and contemptuous of the ability of his commanders, an attitude somewhat justified by the fact that many of his best marshals were now replaced by men of second-rate ability, while others, who were fitted to command, were unwilling from jealousy to work together. Marbot declared that, “if the Emperor had wished to punish all those who were lacking in zeal, he would have been obliged to dispense with the services of nearly all his marshals.”

The service of supplies for the army was most defective. In the beginning of the year 1813, by the carelessness of the administrative work in this department, the Prussians got possession of over $6,000,000 worth of supplies, intended for the French armies. The consequence was that the soldiers depended on pillage; even the officers lived on what they could get from the country. Worse than all was the inability of the Emperor himself to gauge the changed conditions produced by his defeat. He still behaved as if he were invincible, and refused to make terms with Prussia or to conciliate Austria by well-timed territorial concessions. To the end he would not believe that his father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria, would take up arms against him. If, at this time, he had accepted a smaller, compact France, confined to its natural limits, he might have avoided the disasters of 1813 and 1814, and yet ruled over a territory larger than that ever held by Louis XIV.

In the new coalition Prussia was most anxious to restore her prestige; the uprising against the French was a national movement common to all classes of the population. Finally, even the timorous King was induced to side with the Russians and to issue an appeal to his people. There were 150,000 Prussians under arms, and in order to receive the help of other German states, proclamations were issued under Russian auspices, making generous promises of national independence and personal liberty. So were transplanted to German soil the watchwords of the French Revolution. Austria made many open professions of fidelity to the alliance with France, but Metternich was actively intriguing with the smaller German courts. He even tried to detach Jerome of Westphalia and Murat of Naples from the French, and he did all in his power to urge Frederick William, the Prussian king, to take up arms in behalf of the independence of Europe.

In the military operations of 1813, while the French were opposed only by the allied forces of Prussia and Russia, the advantage continued on the side of the French Emperor; by the autumn, however, Austria and many of the German vassal states had joined the coalition and the defeat of Napoleon was the certain outcome. As a result of a series of battles around Dresden, the cause of the allies was in a critical position; both sides had lost heavily but Napoleon was much chagrined that there had been no signal positive advantage from the constant butchery of his men. He was weak in cavalry, and so could not follow up his successes; the terrible loss of horses in Russia had not been made up. But at any rate he was steadily getting back the territory in Germany he had previously held. On the other side, the Russian and Prussian generals were blaming one another for their failures, and so making the continuance of the coalition problematical.

At this point Metternich intervened after an armistice had been signed at Pressnitz early in July, 1813. He agreed to support the coalition, unless the French consented to give up Holland, Switzerland, Spain, the Confederation of the Rhine, Poland, and the larger part of Italy. Napoleon was indignant when Metternich laid down these terms during a personal interview at Dresden. “You want war,” he said; “well, you will get it. I will meet you at Vienna. How many allies have you got, four, five, six, twenty? The more you have the less disturbed I am. What do you want me to do? Disgrace myself? Never. I can die, but I shall never give up an inch of territory. Your sovereigns who are born on a throne can let themselves be beaten twenty times, and always return to their capital. I cannot do it, because I am an upstart soldier. You are not a soldier, and you do not know what takes place in a soldier’s soul. I grew up on battlefields, and a man such as I am cares little for the lives of a million men.”

When a congress met at Prague to arrange the terms of peace, they proved far more favorable to France than those first proposed, for she was granted her natural frontiers and Italy in addition. It was nothing short of madness on Napoleon’s part to refuse such concessions; only a portion of them had even been dreamed of as possibilities under the Bourbon monarchs at the height of their ambition. Even from his own point of view, he might have trusted to the certainty of future jealousies between the central European powers and Russia, by which his place as the arbiter of Europe could be regained. Metternich, indeed, was as insincere in his profession on behalf of peace as Napoleon himself, because the congress closed before a special messenger with the French counter proposals reached Vienna. War was resumed on August 11th.

The situation was now as follows: the French were about to be surrounded by three great armies; 130,000 Austrians, 240,000 Russians, and a mixed host, composed of various contingents from all the allies great and small, under the former French marshal, Bernadotte, numbering 180,000 men. Moreover, there were 200,000 combined English and Spanish soldiers ready to cross the Pyrenees. Altogether 1,000,000 men were ranged in arms against the French Emperor. The plan as developed by Bernadotte, now King of Sweden, was to wear Napoleon out. A decisive battle would be avoided, but his lieutenants would be destroyed in detail. Moreau, the victor of Hohenlinden, was brought from the United States, where he had been living in exile, to assume the command of the allies.

To oppose the vast allied forces, Napoleon had altogether no more than 550,000 men, of whom 330,000 were in Germany. At Dresden, at the end of August, an attack on the place was successfully resisted, and Moreau, the generalissimo of the allies, lost his life. But Napoleon’s scattered marshals fared badly, and the French army suffered heavy losses just at a time when no man could be spared. The enveloping plan was successfully carried out. Napoleon, at Leipzig, realized his hopeless position, for he tried there to arrange an armistice. With his 155,000 men he had against him 330,000 of the coalition. The situation was rendered worse because the German troops serving with the French deserted and joined the enemy; some, like the Saxons, during the very course of the terrible battle which raged for three days around Leipzig (October, 1813). At the end, 15 French generals and 25,000 men were made prisoners, and 350 cannon were taken; 13,000 of the French were massacred in the houses of Leipzig. The losses on both sides were frightful, for 130,000 was the sum total of the killed and wounded, 50,000 of whom were French.

In the retreat which followed, the demoralization was so great that only 40,000 men reached the Rhine, yet nearly 200,000 men were left, by Napoleon’s orders, in various German fortresses, most of them, too, experienced troops who were unable to take further part in the war when their country was invaded in the next year’s campaign. Some attempt was made to arrange terms of peace now that everywhere the Napoleonic system had fallen to pieces. The French armies were driven out of Holland. In Italy alone Eugène Beauharnais was manfully and loyally supporting the Emperor’s cause, but he had only 30,000 men.

The people of France had no heart for more warfare, and the allies let it be known that they were fighting Napoleon and not France. But still the great mass of the people had no wish for a change of dynasty; the war was unpopular, but not its author. As soon as it became known that the cause of the allies meant a restoration of the Bourbons, and that France would be invaded, in order to displace Napoleon, the answer of the country, exhausted though it was and drained of its male population, was spontaneous and unmistakable. From the autumn of 1813, to March, 1814, France placed in the field under Napoleon’s orders, 350,000 men. This is a marvelous record, not to mention the tremendous financial drain caused by the equipment of a fresh army.

The new recruits were not trained, well armed, or sufficiently clothed; there was not time to prepare them for warfare, for the allies crossed the frontiers of France in midwinter (1813). There was no resistance to their progress until Napoleon with an army of 122,000 began to conduct his last extended campaign in the neighborhood of Châlons. By reason of a success gained near Rotheise the allies hoped soon to be in Paris. This over-confidence exposed them to a series of defeats, inflicted upon several of their generals in succession, by Napoleon, in a remarkable exposition of his strategy that recalled the early days of his career in Italy. By the end of February the principal army of the allies retired near Troyes, afraid, though numbering 150,000 men, to face a stand-up fight with Napoleon, who had only 70,000 men. Public confidence was restored in France, especially among the country people, indignant at the brutal treatment they received at the hands of the foreign soldiers. There was now stirred up a spirit of national resistance, which recalled the early days of the French Revolution. The peasantry arose, and inflicted severe losses on the marauding troops. Attempts were made in the spring to arrange terms of peace, but on neither side was there a sincere belief that the war could be brought to an end by mutual concessions. The Congress of Châtillon lasted from the 4th of February to the 19th of March; it was only a concession to public opinion, for the allies really wished for a Bourbon restoration, while Napoleon, depending on his marriage with the daughter of Francis I of Austria, felt certain that he could ultimately detach the Austrians from the coalition. At one time the allied armies were so discouraged, after fighting ten battles on French soil, that they contemplated a retreat eastward.

Confidence was restored to them, not by their military successes, but by the capture of some private despatches from various officials to the French Emperor, which spoke in no uncertain terms of the discontent of the people of Paris and of the general depression throughout a country that was no longer able to bear the material exhaustion caused by the war. So encouraged, the allies marched to Paris; Napoleon anticipated this step, and had ordered the government to withdraw towards the Loire, feeling sure that in time he could drive his foes from French territory. Yet he realized to the full the bad effect of the seizure of his capital.

In approaching the city the allies had only to deal with the marshals, not with the master hand of the Emperor, who first heard of their march westward three days after it had begun. The end soon came; there was a murderous engagement near the city, after which the arrangements for an armistice were made with Joseph Bonaparte, acting for the regent, the Empress Marie Louise. When Napoleon heard the news of the capitulation, he indignantly prepared to annul the action of his brother, and to call the people to arms for a hand-to-hand struggle in the streets of Paris with the foreign soldiery. In a few days, owing to the shrewd persuasions of Talleyrand, who induced Alexander of Russia to accept no alternative government for the country but a Bourbon restoration, Napoleon found himself forced to abdicate.